


The Disease-A Reincarnation Story

by Elohiniar



Series: Tales of The Dog Lord [6]
Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adult Rin (InuYasha), Amazing, Blind Character, Canonical Character Death, Dark, Deaf Character, F/M, Heavy Angst, Illnesses, Lemon, Oral Sex, Original Character Death(s), Seizures, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:14:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 60
Words: 120,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25324477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elohiniar/pseuds/Elohiniar
Summary: The past is buried in the future. The answers to the future lie in the past. Can they be uncovered before Sesshomaru loses his life to the side effects of an illness that killed the demons in the past? Can he find her again, before it's too late and if he does, will it ever be as it was?In the present day, the lasting effects of an illness he fell victim to 500 years before threaten to end his life. At the same time, Rin's soul returns to the body of the blind and deaf Nina Hawthorne. A girl originally from Japan but spirited away by Sesshomaru's pure blooded children with Natsuki.In the past, the monks finally decide to end the life of demon-kind as a whole. Sesshomaru meets his greatest foe, not on the battlefield but within himself and the ill within his village.
Relationships: Higurashi Kagome/InuYasha, Higurashi Kagome/Original Male Character(s), Miroku/Sango (InuYasha), Rin & Sesshoumaru (InuYasha), Rin/Sesshoumaru (InuYasha), Sesshoumaru (InuYasha)/Original Character(s)
Series: Tales of The Dog Lord [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1350946
Comments: 306
Kudos: 49





	1. Sesshomaru-Present I

**Part One**

**Inferno**

**Sesshomaru- Present**

His hands shake. The tremors are getting worse. He knows if he does nothing, it’s only a matter of months before he will no longer walk the earth. One of the last of his kind, it wasn’t an easy pill to swallow.

Today though, they do not shake because of the illness that is taking over his body. Rather they tremble because of the scroll that Taiyomaru brought him from Higurashi shrine. It’s almost pathetic that he had never thought to search through the ancient scrolls of Kagome’s home for the answer he had been seeking for centuries. He knew it was a monk. He knew the monk was connected to Ungai, whose hatred of yokai was tripled because he was unable to stop Sesshomaru from freeing Rin when she was a little girl. But this, this scroll was the last testament of the monk who laid claim to the slaughter of his kind. For that, and because the well is already closed, Sesshomaru sits in a haze of sweat and confusion at work. Work…if his younger-self knew that he would become a savior of humans, the same humans who slaughtered his people.

“Are you going to read it Oji-sama?” Izayoi asks.

The well has been closed for six months. The girls have been brave over the last half year. Mayumi has finally stopped crying for her father and mother to come back at night. She’s thirteen years old. She misses her brothers. She demands to know what happened to Taisho and Sota and her nephew Tatsuo. Because he is not the same demon he was five centuries before, he tells her stories before bed and tucks her in. He kisses the dark haired child’s forehead as if she were his own. His lips lay softly where a crescent moon should grace her forehead. Her yoki simply isn’t strong enough. One night she draws one on herself with a sharpie and falls asleep in his lap while he reads in his library. She’s more human than she is demon.

She attends a local all-girls school in Osaka. She flies with him to his office and meets him there after school. Now she enjoys dive bombing out of the castle in the sky, holding onto his back and waiting for him to pull up. He waits until the last minute, always, until she is screaming so loud she is hoarse and her fingers dig into his shoulders. He used to do it as a dare to see if he could allow himself death. There’s too much at stake now.

Izayoi is a different story. She mourned the loss of her father but quickly became interested in the inner workings of her Uncle’s home. She learned to care for the many injured and the women who came to give birth. As much as Sesshomaru tries to remind those that have survived not to fight, killing is part of the nature of a yokai. Sometimes the injuries are more than yoki can handle. She was given the same medical skills he passed onto his children, IV’s, blood-draws, ultrasounds and isolation measures for when he was forced to bring in those diseased. Thanks to her new skills, she now administers the injections that have been staving off his inevitable death. She’s adept at finding his collapsing veins.

 _Collapsing veins,_ he can’t help but flick his lips as his chin rests in his hands. One such as he, should not have veins that collapse because they are constantly stuck with a cocktail made from the blood of two of his sons and various other components to strengthen his failing nervous system.

When she became bored managing the home, she asked for more responsibility. Now she helps run his clinic in Osaka. She wears a scarf over her head to hide her pointed ears on top of her head and paints her face with make-up to hide the crescent moon on her forehead. She is eighteen now and every bit a young lady.

Sesshomaru worries what he will do in a few more years. She cycles like a human but there is no rush these days to pair her off. She doesn’t look like a normal human. Her chosen one will have to come from one of the canine clans. Either one of her own distant cousins or from Shippo or Sayako’s people. Reproduction is possible because she is more human than yokai. He thinks she will follow in his footsteps and study medicine. But he doesn’t pressure. He knows that teenagers often do the exact opposite of what they are asked simply to spite those around them.

He closes his eyes and tightens his grip on the yellowed parchment. “Perhaps later,” he cannot bring himself now to read what is hidden within this document. “Who is my next patient?”

“They canceled,” Izayoi sits down on his rather gaudy desk. It’s oak and more western than it is Japanese. It’s made from a heavy wood that he pretends is impossible for him to pick up just to act as if he is one of the pathetic humans he treats. Everyone thinks he is magnanimous and benevolent for spending his days treating humans. In reality, he chose this specialty to save his own life. There is something familiar and insidious about the leukemic cells that he studies. The way they multiply and destroy system by system so homogenous to the leftovers of the disease that has rent his body.

As much as he yearns for death, to join Rin in the afterlife, there is much left to do before he leaves. He has perfected the cure, but has yet to be able to create a vaccine that would eradicate it completely. Harutoga and Yuki suffer from the same tremors that he does. Jaken and Shippo are near death. He is not ready to see more pure-blooded yokai move on to the afterlife. He is the sole proprietor of the medical knowledge available to the remaining demons in the world. There can be no waiting, if he doesn’t act soon, even Yuki’s lover will meet the same fate. Katsumoto was once the fastest demon in the world. He now lays in a mess of his own mucous barely able to move. There are so few of them left, he fears what will happen, that this is really the end.


	2. Interlude I-Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tsukimaru discovers Rin's reincarnation, but he can't allow the girl to meet his father, so he takes matters into his own hands.
> 
> Ya'll be prepared, I'm about to post the crap out of this...I want it caught up to my FFN account. I'll do as much as I can :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part One: Inferno

**Before**

**Present**

**10 years ago…**

It happened often these days. More-so in the last seventy years since Lover's Park became an official protected area of Osaka. People abandoned children on the bench that rested beneath the sakura tree. Sometimes there was a letter attached with pertinent details, sometimes there wasn't. It happened frequently enough that Sesshomaru asked one of his children to spend the night in the park one day a week to cover the days when he was on call. The only child that didn't was his willowy daughter Taka. Natsuki held a lingering fear that should her daughter step foot among man, she would be stricken with the same illness that massacred their kind.

That is why Tsukimaru lounged in the branches of the Sakura tree. He lived with his human lover in Mount Koya in a Vista hidden from the human eye. Every Saturday evening he flew down and spent the evening in the large park that was once his father's home with the human Rin. He brought his children to fan out around the entire area, in case a child was left in some other cranny of the grassy expanse. He had met Rin on many occasions when his mother would visit their home. He and Taiyomaru had always been exceptionally close despite the circumstances of his birth and the turmoil it caused. He wore his hair long past his waist. It was braided tightly behind his back, the tips of his ears tucked in. His youthful appearance was that of a sixteen year old. His mokomoko wrapped around his left shoulder, similar to his fathers. He made no effort in the hollow of evening to hide more than that. His cheeks carried the same double magenta stripes, his nails long, his forehead crescent mooned. The only difference were the stripes across the backs of his shoulders. His sensitive nose was just as well attuned as his father's.

His father had asked them to guard the park at night after an infant had died on the park bench from exposure in the 1970's. His golden eyes tracked down, people were coming. They smelled of the earth and fields, of flowers and vegetation. They probably came from the mountain regions. They set a sleeping child on the bench, then said a prayer by the statue of the dog with red eyes that spouted water from its mouth. Tsukimaru shook his head disappointed. There was even an orphanage that had been named after Lover's Park. Their family supported it financially. Where Sesshomaru had found his place in medicine, Tsukimaru still preferred a quieter life away from humans, although he had bonded one. He wrote tales of the past that were highly popularized.

They wore plain clothing that was tattered with holes. They left an envelope on the sleeping child's chest. The female human bent down and laid her lips on the child's forehead. They disappeared into the trees. He flew out of the tree, picking up the envelope. He sliced it open with the tip of his forefinger. It was written in broken Kanji, the letters sloppy and almost unreadable.

_No money. Sick. Blind. No hearing. No speaking. Find home. Thank you. Five years old._

He had learned from his own father how to sniff for illness. He bent over the sleeping child and inhaled deeply. His eyes bolted open. He drew in a deeper breath through his nose. His bottom lip trembled. He knew this smell. It was impossible. How could this child carry this scent? He dipped his nose into the sleeping child's neck, taking it in at a closer range. _Morning dew._ He refused to believe it. He had to act fast.

His children still looked like children despite being over fifty years old. He had four in quick succession, the fourth to spite his father and outdo him. "Shinobu, Shoumaru," he called to his eldest two sons. He knew they were nearby.

Two white haired children with cat ears on top of their heads came running from the bushes. "What is it Chichiue?" Shoumaru the eldest asked. They could pass for quadruplets the same way his father's hanyous looked like triplets. They stood the size of eight year-olds. Shoumaru had single magenta stripes on his cheeks, a moon on his forehead, and claws. His hair went to his shoulders as he stood in the moonlight. "Another one? At least it's been a few months since the last one."

"Guard her," Tsukimaru hovered into the air.

"Where are you going Chichiue?" Shinobu questioned his father, "Sofu-sama said to take them to the orphanage if we found them."

"Do not question me," Tsukimaru reprimanded them. "Guard her." He alighted into the autumn air, glad that cold did not affect him. He headed to his father's home in the sky. He knew that his father would not be there. He was not in Japan. There was a conference of Oncologists in Australia and a new outbreak of the disease in the outback among those yokai that had sought refuge there. It wasn't his parents he sought, it was his sister. The castle had been moved so it hovered just over Lovers Park making the trip less taxing on their father. He hovered by the door outside of Taka's room. He banged the wooden frame until she opened it, dressed in an elaborate emerald green kimono with several layers beneath it. "Come with me," he grabbed Taka by the wrist and yanked her out the door.

She had her own slender mokomoko that looped around her waist. "Tsukimaru, I'm not allowed to go down there!" She protested. "Chichiue and Haha-ue don't want me too!"

"You can't live your life forever trapped in the castle. What will you do when your first heat comes?" Tsukimaru laughed, "ask Katsumoto to impregnate you?"

She snarled at her brother. "Perhaps Chichiue will find someone suited to me in the next sixty years."

"We are the last of our kind Taka," they landed by the park bench. "There are no others." He knelt down and sniffed the child again. "Did she wake?" He asked his sons.

"No," Shoumaru answered sitting cross legged on the ground near the sakura tree. "She cannot hear? Or see?"

"That is what the letter said," he passed the envelope to Taka.

"Chichiue will kill me if he finds out I left the castle," Taka twitched nervously.

"You'll take a long bath, he won't be back for two weeks anyway," Tsukimaru reminded her. He knew this smell, the smell of morning dew, the smell of fresh flowers, the smell of _her._ "Taka, you will take this child to another country. Anywhere but here."

"What?" Taka gasped covering her mouth. "Chichiue told you to take the children found here to the orphanage!"

"No," Tsukimaru said quickly, "this one is different. Can't you smell it?" He growled low remembering how his mother had suffered in her heat waiting for his father to come and help her. She locked herself in her room for months crying, sweat covered, smelling sick. Even then, his father only stayed long enough he knew now to relieve her before he returned to this very spot where he buried his dead lover under the boughs of the sakura leaves. "It's her."

"Who?" Taka wasn't following his train of thought. She sniffed the air tasting it with her nose. "Eww she stinks like dirt."

"Her family was probably farmers," Tsukimaru inferred. "Taka, take her. Take her to China, to Russia, to England. I don't care where. She can't remain here."

"Why?" Taka tenderly removed the hair from the child's face. She had scars over her eyes, bruises on her cheeks. "She looks as if she was beaten. Do all humans smell like this."

"Obasan, maybe you should spend less time in the sky," Shinobu laughed. "She smells like a farmer's child."

"Take her Taka, now," Tsukimaru roared at his sister. "She is her. Father's human lover. I can smell it on her. They share the same scent, the nose and the cheeks are the same. I have seen pictures of this human when she was a child. She cannot stay here."

"You think Chichiue would fall in love with her again?" Taka finally picked up on Tsukimaru's concern. "Why does that matter? Haha-ue doesn't love him, we know that."

Tsukimaru only spared her an annoyed glance, shaking his head sadly. "You really are naïve. Pick her up and find somewhere for her to go that is not in Japan. Return before Haha-ue and Chichiue do. Wash yourself well, so they don't suspect you were out."

"What if I get sick?" She protested.

Tsukimaru exhaled exasperated, "then your brothers will rescue you."

"You know they don't like me," she complained hefting the sleeping child into her arms.

"He may not like you but Taiyomaru would not let you die," he gave her a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Go my sister."

"Do you want to know where I take her?" Taka picked up the little child and the envelope.

"No," Tsukimaru replied. He spared a look at his two sons, "you will say nothing to Sofu-sama, Soba-sama or your sister and brother."

"It's really her?" Taka sniffed the shoulder of the girl. "How is she sleeping through this?"

"She can't hear," Tsukimaru touched the child's cheek with the back of her fingers. "And," he smelled her mouth, "they drugged her." He shook his head sadly. "Go Taka, before whatever it is they gave her wears off. They return in two weeks. That's long enough to take her out of the country."

"Tsukimaru he loved her…if this is her…why shouldn't he meet her? He misses her." Taka had never met Rin. She had only heard stories about her from her father and brother. Her hanyou siblings avoided her, were angry with her and refused to speak to her.

"He will break Haha-ue's heart," Tsukimaru bellowed, "if that happens their bond will break. We cannot risk it."

"She doesn't love him!" Taka fought back unsure of this decision.

"Yes she does. You just don't see it and neither does he. I will not let a child break them apart. Take her out of the country, to China, to Korea, to Vietnam, anywhere but here," Tsukimaru whistled signaling for the rest of his children. "Now Taka!" He screamed at his sister.

She jolted at the intensity of his voice, flying into the air with the child in her arms. "I'm sorry little one…I can't let you hurt Haha-ue," she lingered a tender kiss onto the child's forehead. "Where should I take you?"

Taka never returned home. Tsukimaru and his son's remained quiet, while their parents mourned for her. Sesshomaru returned to find her room empty her scent stale, another hole left in his heart. Natsuki fumed at him for his carelessness. "You shouldn't have expected her to live her entire life trapped in here," Sesshomaru rebuked her.

"Where is she?"

He comforted Natsuki, held her, made love to her to assuage her pain.

"If she gets sick? You know how awful it is, how long it lasts. If she can't get home in time, she'll end up like you," she sobbed against him.

"She'll come back…"

Ten years later she was still missing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment and KUDO :)


	3. Kagome-Past I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kagome gets ready for Sesshomaru, Rin and their children to come visit.

**Kagome-past**

She kneads rice patties against a stone while sitting by the fire. There are times she still can't believe that she has spent the last twenty years of her life in the Feudal Era, if you don't count the last few years. There are conveniences of the modern era, like Kitchen Aid Mixers, Iphones, and Facebook that would make her life so much easier. As it is, she has to walk a mile to talk to Sango whose house is not only full of children but grand-children now. Kneading anything takes twenty or thirty minutes. She can treat the sick in the modern era with IV's and drugs that she can't transport back. **He** won't let her. There are side effects that he can't account for and she could kill someone, if she isn't careful.

It was difficult being away from her two sons, although Taisho and Sota came into their own under their Uncle's care. It's Sota she is most excited to see. Four years before, Sayako gave birth to their first child Tatsuo. He is a rambunctious, one-eighth inu-yokai, half-wolf demon with fuzzy black ears on his head, dark hair and golden eyes like his father. She sees him every couple of months. The travel is long and far. Sota and Sayako continue to lead a pack of ookami on Sesshomaru's southern border. They've successfully kept the Ogres at bay for the last five years since Rin killed the Ogre King. Kagome chuckles to herself. In the modern Era, her brother is dating a girl that her mother is sure he is going to marry. He's twenty eight, finished his residency as an OBGYN and landed an attending position in Osaka. At twenty eight she was already mother to four, at thirty five she became a grand-mother, something unheard of in the modern time.

She shakes her head, excited. Rin and Sesshomaru are coming with their children and Taisho. Mayumi and Izayoi are there, staying the night until they go back to the Modern Era tomrrow. Izayoi does school online, she is eighteen and so much a feminine copy of her father, it's scary. Mayumi is fourteen and is finally looking more like a young lady and less like a little girl. Her black hair falls in waves down her back. When Yuki comes, she'll fight with her cousins over who has the best moves. Harutoga will show them his new tricks and sit quietly next to the fire watching the glowing embers like his father and Taiyomaru who is no longer so small will beg someone to play tag or hide and seek. It's the family she never dreamed of having.

She can sense Inuyasha's yoki nearby. He has come home finally after spending the day hunting. A huge boar is slung over his shoulders. The girls come in behind him with herbs from the garden and fresh vegetables, a rainbow of color. "Come help me, they'll be here anytime now."

"Makes me wish they could call and tell us when they are coming," Mayumi laughs. She has her own cellphone. Her grandmother insisted she get one. "Ka-san, did you really get pregnant at eighteen?"

"Obasan got pregnant at seventeen," Izayoi smiles wildly. "But after being over there, I'm not sure anyone here would do the trick for me. I like the comforts of the modern world."

"And what would you tell your suitor about these?" Inuyasha tickles his daughter's pointed ears on the top of her head. "Would you tell them it's a headband? Plastic surgery?" After twenty years, he is well versed in the modern Era lingo.

She bats at his hands, "Ota, stop it!"

"Did you tell him about the boy you kissed?" Mayumi divulges her sister's secret as if it's hers to tell.

"Mayumi you promised!" She shrieks, her cheeks blushing.

"You kissed someone?" Kagome squeals so glad her children are experiencing life the way it is meant to be.

Inuyasha's face darkens. Kagome knows the protective side of him is not happy about this, but before he can open his mouth, Kagome has laid out tea for the girls in flowered china with a cast iron kettle hanging from the square hearth for when the guests come. She kneels down by their table in a simple blue kimono holding her girls hands, "so who was it?" The mother asks excitedly.

"Kagome!" Inuyasha flops down next to the girls, "I don't approve."

"You kissed me when I was fifteen and got me pregnant when I was eighteen. We're lucky all she's done is kissed," Kagome chuckles. "Who was he?"

"His name is Kai. I met him at the mall," Izayoi gushes about the boy.

Kagome doesn't listen. Her mind wanders to who will marry her daughter. There are possibilities in Sesshomaru's home. She's spoken about it with Sesshomaru from the future, but he fears she will expose them. He doesn't trust humans, yet Kagome has seen no sign of this killer virus. His tremors are bad these days. He is worried. She hasn't given up finding the cure to his disease. She's brought many samplings of his blood back to him to inspect, not just his but Shippo, Katsumoto, the children and any pure-blooded demon she can convince. She was going to search for a rare herb that Nobuatsu said could treat him. Nobuatsu is Jinenji's uncle and took over position as Healer in Rin and Sesshomaru's village. She's determined that the seizures will not take his life. But hope is frail and she hasn't had time to find the herb.

She glances at the fire, then grips the material of her azure kimono by her heart. "He keeps getting stronger," she rises from her knees and exits her hut leaning against the wooden-frame of the door. It's summer, their favorite time to get together. Yuki and Harutoga look like twins now. Their hair is tied back in long braids that go down to their backsides. They are the exact same size, although Yuki claims she is taller. They run up and hug her around the waist screaming, "Obasan!"

Taiyomaru jumps out of Sesshomaru's arms and runs inside the hut. His black hair is loose and he looks every bit a pureblooded demon despite his hanyou origins. She laughs and ruffles his hair. Izayoi and Mayumi tackle the children leading them from the hut into the forest. "Don't wander far!" Rin calls to her children.

"We're fine!" They yell back at their mother.

"Katsumoto," Sesshomaru commands the dark haired sentinel with an appallingly youthful face. Kagome's mouth hits the ground. He looks younger than the one she met in the future only one time. She covers her mouth trying not to blanch. He is as gorgeous now as he will be five hundred years in the future when he takes Yuki as his.

"He's gorgeous where did you get him?" She alights down the steps and hugs her sister-in-law.

"Don't ask," Rin glances back at Sesshomaru. She holds the hand of her demon lover, a man far less taxed than the one she has seen in the future.

"Onisama," she bows to her brother in law. Once she called him Onisan and he balked. She has learned that he is a proud demon that craves respect. In the beginning it drove Inuyasha crazy that she called him that, but it brought peace between them. She reaches out for a hug to receive the same annoyed look she had all those years ago. "Sorry," she laughs again, then ducks into the hut. She removes a book for him, "this is about epidemiology. There are notes from a doctor I know in my time. I think you'll like it."

He nods a thank you, the most he will say and walks into the forest. She knows he will sit and read the book under a tree. She knows exactly where this curiosity with medicine will lead him. It all started with tending to Rin after the Healer caused a miscarriage and she took her time waking up. Since then, he has asked for books and notes. She has done what she can for him without revealing where it's coming from.

Taisho comes running up after taking off Aun's saddle and bridle. He leaps into his mother's arms. His skin is even darker, but his eyes just as bright brown. "Taisho you've gotten so big!" She hugs him around the shoulders. He's taller than she is.

"I'm a man," he reminds her.

Inuyasha comes out and hugs his son. He squeezes his bicep proudly then goes out to the tree that Sesshomaru has found himself beneath. Kagome smiles. In the past they would battle and fight, greet each other with jibes and insults. Now, they talk quietly about what she has no idea. It's good to see them together. She still wonders why she has never seen Inuyasha in the future.

Another rush of Yoki and Sota and Sayako come from the bushes behind their home with two wolves behind them. One of them carrying their son on her back. The wolf's name is Ame. It's not the first time Kagome has met her. She runs to her eldest son, whose hair now looks more like his uncle's. He used to wear it short before he spent a year living with the dog-demon. "Sota! Tatsuo! Sayako!" She runs to her extended family embracing them all. She holds them all tightly then walks off with Tatsuo in hand. He kicks and screams and wiggles free chasing the scent of his aunts and Rin's children.

"His sense of smell is already that strong?" Kagome goes back to the hut with Sayako. Sota has already trailed off to the tree that is now occupied by Taisho, Inuyasha and Sesshomaru.

"It begins early," Sayako's smiles. She still looks at Sota with the fondness of a newlywed.

"Hisato!" Kagome calls to the other shadow leaning against a tree, "can I get you anything."

"No, Miko," he answers with a smirk. He has never accepted her offers of kindness. He is always behind Rin like a shadow, there to protect her. "Does he ever eat?" She disappears into the hut.

"He takes care of himself. Besides if he becomes a guest, his defenses will go down. Which wouldn't be helpful now," Rin's voice becomes low. "Have you heard anything about monks and mikos attacking demons at random?"

"We haven't been back long," Kagome says quietly. "What's going on?"

"I've heard of it too. There is a band of monks purifying at random," Sayako says it nervously. The house suddenly becomes quiet. Kagome thinks of her daughters outside.

"Don't worry about them. Katsumoto is with them," Rin reminds her. "He is very fast. Faster than Sesshomaru," she adds on quietly. "They're safe."

"And Yuki," Sayako starts laughing. "The last time we visited the estate she left this," Sayako turns up her wrist revealing a jagged scar.

The women start laughing and then the stories start.

As the sun darkens and dinner is ready the children are called back. They all sit down to a meal together crowded in the hut. Thirteen people in a hut meant for six is suffocating. Kagome tries to convince the two sentinels to join but they keep their posts hidden in the trees outside. For once her hut is as loud as Sango and Miroku's. It makes her laugh watching everyone together. The children sleep in one big pile in the middle of the hut. Sesshomaru whispers something to Rin and exits holding her hand. Inuyasha slides an arm around Kagome, and tilts his head to the corner where Sota is holding Sayako intimately, kissing her lips for everyone to see. Kagome can only laugh. There is no warmth like the warmth of seeing someone love her son as much as she does.

In the other corner, the other three kids snigger and laugh at the couple. Just to embarrass them, she grabs Inuyasha by the long strands of hair that surround his face and lays a heavy one on his lips until she is sure his cheeks are blushing and a bulge pops up in the middle of his pants. His tongue dips into her lips, her tongue fights back. She moans angry that he was the one to make her react then they break apart when Rin enters alone.

"He had to go, some meeting at his mother's castle in the sky. I'm sorry. Apparently it was urgent," Rin sits down with a depressed look on her face.

Kagome squeezes Inuyasha's hand, and they all fall asleep for the night.


	4. Rin-Past I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rin wakes to Sesshomaru leaving but while he's gone and she and Kagome find a way for Rin to enter the well and see Sesshomaru in the future.

**Rin-past**

She wakes up first, finding herself worried. Her heart races. She feels the void next to her. Sesshomaru left quickly, with little warning. Everyone was too busy to notice that Gobodo-sama herself had called him away. He knows his mother's yoki so well. She sighs, the years have been easier since the Ogre King was killed. Her life is lighter. She still worries when he goes to the castle in the sky, fearful that being so close to Natsuki's yoki will reel him in again. But she has learned to trust him when he says that he doesn't feel the need to return to her and that their paths do not cross.

She has her own secret. When Taiyomaru was a baby and Sesshomaru spent a week away from home, Natsuki would often come to visit before he came to visit Tsukimaru in the castle. It was the only time the baby would stop crying. Now that they are both five, Tsukimaru is still very much a baby and Taiyomaru the same size as a human five year old. Taiyomaru still loves seeing his brother. Yuki and Harutoga hate it when she comes, but Rin knows the anger that can exist between a pure-blooded yokai and hanyou siblings. She cares too much for her children to repeat the past.

She stretches out aching joints. In her home she has a comfortable futon to sleep on. Here, it's just a bamboo mat that barely cushions her bones. She goes to relieve herself knowing that Hisato is following from a distance protecting her privacy. When she is finished she hears footsteps behind her. Kagome runs to her and holds her hand, "I figured it out." She tugs the younger woman into the forest.

"Figured what out?" Rin has no idea. She is tired, she didn't sleep well and she misses Sesshomaru. She follows anyway, trying not to trip on the leaves and twigs. Being dragged through the forest makes her as stealthy as an elephant stampeding on the savanna.

"Come on," she grabs Rin's hand and leads her to the Well. She goes in herself first and disappears for a few minutes. "What is she up to?" She asks Taisho who is standing by the well.

His muscles harden as he leans over it. "Hisato, you can take a break if you want. I'll watch her." The boy has grown in the last five years. He's no longer the rail thin thirteen year old that whined because his yoki wasn't strong enough. He knows how to use what he has and can harness much more of his spiritual powers. He spends one month a year training with Miroku then returns to help maintain the barrier around his Uncle's home and helps to guard the perimeter.

"Why do I get the feeling you are up to something?" Hisato folds his arms, he always folds his arms. His golden eyes harden like amber as he stairs Rin down. "Rin-sama?"

"Go on. I'll yelp if I need you," she says happy to be with her extended family. _Family,_ she thinks of the word. Twenty years before she was an eight year old girl in a village where no one wanted her. She was beaten for stealing fish to eat. She was half starved and probably would have died the next winter if Sesshomaru hadn't found her. _You found me,_ she hears his voice in her head. Like always, he insists, she found him. So many years together and the only words she uses for him in private is _my love._ He calls her, _my heart,_ and between them they know what it means. He can feel because of her. She has a hard time imagining what he was like before she met him despite the stories she was told.

Then they made love and became more. Now she is related through marriage to Inuyasha and Kagome and has nieces and nephews, a yokai lover, three children and an overbearing controlling mother in law.

Kagome climbs back through, "kami this was easier when I was a teenager," she hands a bag full of items to Taisho that Rin has no idea what they are.

"What are you doing?" Rin asks them.

"Sending you through," together Kagome and Taisho set their hands on the protruding wooden lip of the well.

"You figured it out?" More than once Rin has wanted to see him in the future, to know the kind of yokai he has become. She worries about what will happen when age takes her and he is without her. She wonders if Natsuki is there, does she comfort him? She's nearly thirty, yet she still feels like she did in her early twenties. She smiles, wondering what he will think of her.

"I just called him. Now to convince the well to let you go through," pink and blue spiritual energy swirls around the mother and son feeding into the well.

"Oka!" Izayoi calls from the distance with a backpack on. Mayumi follows behind her older sister. Instead of leaving for the night they decided to stay. They leap through the Well and disappear.

She never believes it when she sees it. She is even less inclined to think it will work this time.

"You need different clothes," Kagome throws her another bag. "Put that on."

Rin removes the garment from the bag. She knows it's clothes from Kagome's time. She even knows how to put them on, hiding behind her kimono for modesty. She steps out dressed like a woman from the future in a light yellow dress and a lavender cardigan. "Take this," she hands her katana to Kagome. She climbs over the side of the well and carefully leaps in. At first she lands in the mud, nothing happens. Her feet squish against the goo below. She rests a hand on the sides made of jagged stone, _let me see him. Please?_

"Just wait!" Kagome calls, "don't stay longer than an hour. I don't know how long we can hold it!"

She is swallowed in a mixture of neon blue and bright pink lights that wrap around her body. It takes her breath away as she is sent to the other side


	5. Sesshomaru-past I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru is ambushed by Kensaku in his mother's castle. Thus begins a reckoning he isn't ready for. 
> 
> If this is your first time reading my works, Hisato is bonded to Gobodo-sama (sessmom).

**Sesshomaru-past**

"What is the meaning of this?" He questions his mother as he lands at the steps of her castle. She herself had come for him demanding his presence, _your life and the life of your family depends on it_. The summer gatherings had been happening since Sota became one with Sayako. Rin looked forward to them as did their children, particularly because of the time spent together. His lover ached when he left, but his mother is not one to mince words.

Lining the stairs are rows of demons higher up in the aristocratic ranks of Inu-yokai, including Kensaku the father of Natsuki. In the past a peace had been made between Kensaku and Sesshomaru contingent upon his relationship with Natsuki. She has kept her distance to give him time with Rin.

The dog demons are dressed in pompous robes of various royal colors, representing the different clans of Inu-yokai. They are of silver, black and brown hair. Their eyes are cold and hard as they observe him walking up the steps.

Off to the side, Natsuki lingers holding their son in her arms. He curses that the very sight of her causes a pinch in his heart. He catches her gaze for a moment before pivoting away from his mother in a fury. He will not stay and listen to this. He has never been part of their counsel and he will not begin now.

Gobodo-sama catches his arm just above the elbow, "Kensaku has filed a formal complaint." The words are spoken through clenched teeth that scrape together as the words exit her mouth. She is dressed in her finest robes, maroon and gold, the colors of his father.

He tightens his lip scoffing, "a complaint? Against this Sesshomaru? On what grounds?" Honor and prestige are a part of their nature. There is a silent agreement amongst their kind that makes his mother the head of their kind. Living for as long as she has and being superior in strength will do that.

Again his eyes track against his will to Natsuki in the corner. She is holding her head high as Tsukimaru continues to struggle in her arms. But then something happens. He feels his bond to Rin fade. He stares at the dog demon, silver haired and pompous, single stripes under the eyes, fangs like them all, with four mokomokos. He is by far in age Sesshomaru's superior but fails to match him in strength. He grips the hilt of his katana angrily. Something is wrong, he can no longer feel Rin. He turns to leave as quickly as he came.

Gobodo-sama catches his arm again, "this has to be dealt with." Her nose is near his, tone low and forceful.

"It can wait," he rips his arm loose turning his back on the ones behind him, an insult. New enemies will be made from his lack of decorum, but he can't feel Rin and this makes his heart race. The old pain is still there, the old fears of her leaving him and hiding their children, of months spent searching and no scent to lead him to the ones he loves.

"He isn't going to let it go," she follows him down the steps, "dammit, Sesshomaru stop. You don't understand what is at stake!"

His bottom lip trembles in rage. The only outward sign of his anger, "why is she here?" He can't help but stare at Tsukimaru. He looks like a six month old now. He wobbles when he crawls, the baby is crying in earnest now, reaching for his father. His hair is mousy and curled around his ears making for a silver snowfall. Sesshomaru can see his first fangs peeking out between two cherry red lips. When he visits him now, they play hide and seek. He hides in the garden behind a tree while his infant son crawls around finding him. He sings softly songs of their kind until Tsukimaru falls asleep in his arms.

 _I'm sorry,_ Natsuki mouths to him bouncing the baby on her hips. Her eyes have rings around them, her fingers are tense along the chunky hips of the baby. Something is wrong with her and he hates himself for wanting to pull her aside and ask how he can care for her.

He ignores her, consumed by the lack of Rin's bond in his awareness. His thumb finds the scar over his heart, the jagged emblem left by his father. _It's still there, so it hasn't broken_ , but her awareness is gone.

"He has threatened an all-out war if you continue to shame his daughter," his mother circles around him like she did when he was a child, ensuring that she has his rapt attention.

"I have done nothing to his daughter!" He bites back at his mother, too furious to speak further. _Is that what this is about?_

"That is the problem! Return in three days. I will hold him off for that long," the hand restraining him leaves his arm, allowing him to leave.

"Your meddling is what caused this in the first place," he spits at her. If his mother had left well enough alone, Touma would have never found out about Natsuki and he would have never hurt Rin the way he did. _Where is she?_ He can't think, his mind is occupied with thoughts of the lover he can't feel.

"If I hadn't, he would have challenged you with an army loyal to him. Even you the Great Sesshomaru would not have survived that. It is not our way to spurn one to make the other happy Sesshomaru. Your human must learn to accept Natsuki as part of your life," she walks away so gracefully unannoyed he wants to slit her throat.

He jumps into the air and calls on his yoki to glide back to the village where he left Rin. He can't feel her and despite the branding over his heart being intact, he fears he worst. There is an unspoken uneasiness between them. They have lived happily but behind the curtains of comfort he knows she fears him falling to his instincts again and he suffers trepidation that she will leave again.

He is brought out of his thoughts by a clawed hand attempting to catch his neck. He grabs it so forcefully, the hand leaves the wrist spurting blood on his mokomoko. It's one of Kensaku's guards and another right behind them. "You disgrace your kind!" One of them yells at him.

He cares not for their words. For this vermin, his katana is unnecessary. He revels in the feeling of warm blood dripping down his fingers, staining his garment. He slashes the second one in the stomach as they twist in the wind, removing what he is sure is the duodenum, ileum and jejunum, strange words he has learned from the books he reads. He turns on the one who's hand he removed, breaking his neck. "Simple vermin," he has an idea now what is going on and what this meeting will entail. There is truth in his mother's words, he cannot withstand the attack of an army of his own kind. Their peace is ruptured and he fears what he must do to keep it.

As he lands in the village, Hisato is resting in a tree with his eyes closed. His black hair is tied into a tight pony tail as he uses his black mokomoko to rest on. Rin's scent is absent.

Sesshomaru slashes the branch out from underneath the sleeping demon with his whip, sending him falling. To his regret Hisato catches himself before he lands back first in the mulching leaves. "Where is she?"

"With Taisho," Hisato rights himself. "I did not leave her unprotected. She is as safe here, as she is home, you know that or you wouldn't have allowed her to grow up here."

He takes affront at that comment and lashes out, relieving some of his frustration on Hisato. The black haired demon, bound to his mother ducks, the first few blows, then a blocks his kicks and his slashing claws. Years of training together has made Hisato that much more cunning. He finally grabs him by the neck and roars, "what is Kensaku doing?"

"It is not our custom to spurn one lover to make the other happy, Sesshomaru-sama. He claims you have humiliated his daughter and shunned her. If you don't allow Natsuki to live with you, and you continue to refuse to honor the bond you made to her, he will bring a force and attack your home."

"Rin," he doesn't need the answer, he knows who the target will be.

"Yes," Hisato pushes the clawed hand off his neck. Together they walk into the clearing where the Well is.

"How many is his army?" He questions as gazes into the grass.

"Several hundred strong at least," Hisato trails a few paces behind Sesshomaru as is custom.

"How many in humanoid form?"

"Over a hundred," the younger demon informs him.

Sesshomaru stops, facing Hisato he cocks his eyebrows. Today the guard wears his traditional forest green haori with black hikama, "and where will your loyalties lie if I choose war?"

Hisato is one of the most powerful amongst his sentinels but also the lover of his mother. "I am sworn to protect Rin-sama. By my blood or my death, her life will be preserved."

"And if your lover," he sneers. He cannot fathom why his mother chose someone barely over the age of five hundred, "decides that her life is expendable?"

Hisato lowers his eyes, his fists clench, clearly conflicted. "I swore to her to protect Rin-sama. It would be dishonorable to go back on that oath."

Sesshomaru's chest slackens in relief not just at Hisato's words but at the sudden springing of Rin into his awareness. Her scent hits him strongly, but is coated in something foreign. Something that makes no sense, something that can't be.


	6. Rin-Past II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru discovers Rin is missing, but they come back together in the most pleasant way possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part One: Inferno

**Rin-past**

She knows she is in trouble the moment she sees him coming from the trees. Immediately she backs away tripping on some twigs. His eyes are raging, they're near turning red. She is still dressed in the modern clothing. She hasn't had a chance to wash the scent of the older Sesshomaru from her body. Tears still stain her cheeks. It was so hard saying good-bye to him knowing that her death caused a permanent hole in his heart that was never filled. She wanted to stay with him and return to this one all at the same time.

"Where were you?" He fumes at her.

"I…" she knows she has to lie. She backs away and almost trips back first into the well.

Kagome is shaking her head over his towering shoulder and motioning Taisho to be quiet. No one knows about Sesshomaru of the future but Rin and Kagome and now the teenage boy. She knows that secrecy is must. If the yokai before her knew that he would turn into a doctor that treated humans, he really would refuse just to spite himself. She is proud of who he will become and for that she must lie to the one she loves the most.

"Um…I was here," it is a ridiculous attempt to hide the truth from him, especially dressed the way she is. The back of her knees knock into the well throwing her off balance.

He catches her before she falls. "Wearing this?" He tugs at the front of her dress with his index finger. It dips low showing a fair amount of her chest.

"Yes," she forces confidence to flow from her lips.

He raises an eyebrow at her gripping her arm just above the elbow joint. He storms off with her into the forest, "where were you?"

They're covered by bushes and trees, out of everyone's eyeshot and she prays earshot because he is furious. His nose is in her neck, running up her jawbone and stops over her lips. His breath beats at her skin, giving her goosebumps. His fingers clasp over her chin, sniffing the plump petals, "someone kissed you."

"Someone in the village," she knows it was the wrong thing to say the second it leaves her lips. She flinches at the pain to her chin.

"I don't smell him. What I do smell is a liar," his fingers hold her face, leaving marks on her chin.

Tears leave her eyes, her face stings, "you're hurting me," she tells him attempting to move his hand. "Let go," she shoves him backwards rubbing her chin. If there is one thing she refuses to tolerate from him, it is when he becomes overly aggressive. One day a woman came for a poultice when she lived with Kaede-sama. She was sent from the hut, but overheard the woman crying about the bruises her husband left on her. As a child who was beaten often, it was something she told herself would not happen to her.

He closes the distance between them. "Tell me the truth," he nuzzles the mark he left behind. "You are keeping something from me."

"What happened at your mother's?" She asks him just as boldly, hoping that the subject change will help.

"Nothing," he says just as quickly at her words.

"You're lying to me," she wraps her arms around his shoulder. "Can't you just accept that some heated male thought I was beautiful and decided to kiss me?" That wasn't an entire lie. She hoped it was enough to silence him. She runs the back of her hand down the side of his face, "what's wrong?"

His face is more lined than it was in the past. He looks thoroughly exasperated with her. It makes her giddy knowing that she has this much control over him.

He doesn't speak but she recognizes the look in his eye, the one of possession, the one that screams _mine._ His nose sniffs down the front of the dress, a claw slitting into the fabric down the back baring her skin to him as he does. The dress drips down her shoulders. "Does this mean you forgive me?"

"This means I remove a cloth that smells foreign," he pulls a leg over his shoulder as he kneels down and his nose finds somewhere else that makes her fingers dig into his shoulders. She can hear him sniffing, the uptake of wind both tickling and arousing. He scoffs, "he only kissed you."

"I promise, kami Sesshomaru, not here. Someone will hear," fire shoots through her. Now he is in control and she can only hang on for dear life. She grips his shoulders, fingers digging into his muscles. Her knee bends slightly at the feeling of invading fingers tugging on her lacy underwear.

"Then I suggest, you try to not make so much noise," the honed claw slits into the side of her pink panties. "Why do you wear these?" He slits off the side of the other. They fall by her ankles as his nose once again pokes into the line of her lower lips. A tongue dips into the slit, lovingly licking her in a way that is too teasing. His mouth wanders back up and sucks against the muscles right under her navel, then stops. The curved back of his finger runs up and down her bare privates making her cringe. "Why do you insist on wearing these things. They get in the way."

She chuckles holding his head, running her fingers through his hair. She slides her thumb and forefinger over the tips of his ears. She knows it calms him so she takes advantage of it. "They keep my bottom covered."

"Hikama will do that," he says firmly still massaging her with the back of his finger.

"Kagome-sama brings them for me. They're more comfortable and if you keep cutting them I won't have any left!" She shudders as the finger runs back down, teasing her.

"I see I have some shredding to do," his lips place a chaste kiss below.

"What are you doing?" She tries catching her breath. For a moment she thought this would be a quick interaction but now he wants to draw it out.

"Thinking," he parts her lips and nuzzles her clit.

She whistles trying to stifle a moan. "I'm going to fall down."

"I'll catch you," he grips her waist. "Do you know the agony your opening experiences in childbirth? The way it stretches?"

"Yes, I'm the one that gives birth to the babies remember?"

"I did feel your pains with Yuki," he reminds her then sucks.

"OH!" She puts a hand over her own mouth, her knee bends, she holds onto his head. His tongue darts in and out, then licks up and he sucks again. She bites her lip to keep the sounds in. "You've been reading more of those books! Kami…oh," his fingers have found their way inside.

"Anatomy is fascinating," he whispers against her lips then sucks deeply, pulsating with his tongue. "Like this is called a clitoris. I wouldn't have termed it that. It's more like the petal of a flower."

"You really are going to sit and talk while you- eek!" Now there are roaming fingers. He's all but supporting her weight as she holds on. He finds a place that is so sweet it's almost painful inside of her.

"But so sensitive," his lips meet it again, "and sweet like nectar," his tongue begins vibrating against it.

"You are evil," she hisses into his ear moaning quietly. She nips at his ear to punish him and attempts to make herself relax. The fire begins to bloom in her belly, the one that she knows is going to have her yelling soon. "Please say there is no one in the forest?"

His fingers massage her, "you know this swells when you are excited." The two upturned fingers push against a bulge at the front of her vagina.

"Ah!" She cries into his ears.

"So sensitive. The children are near the river. Sota and Sayako are making love in the bushes. If you are too loud," he jabs the spot harder.

"Oh!" It comes out as a hoarse whisper.

"They will hear you," he sniggers against her clit. "Are you trying to stop yourself from finishing?" He removes his face from her nether regions and lifts her eyes.

She gazes down at him, his mouth is lightly covered in her warmth. She raises an eyebrow at him and smirks, "are you making love to me to assert your dominance and possession?"

He pulls her down by the shoulder and flips her onto her back. "Very well then, see how long you can resist this Sesshomaru. Just know one of the books I read is on the female sex organ and I know just where," his mouth covers her swelling bud again while the fingers find the swelling tissue inside that squeezes in pleasure.

"Oh…oh…" She covers her mouth and watches the sky. _Trees, limbs…leaves…oh kami I'm going to scream._ The fire turns into an inferno. It burns a whole through her middle. She tries to wiggle away from him only to be pulled back.

"To touch you," one last thrust of his fingers and she feels the first pulse inside the deep pleasure. But then he stops and she's left hanging on the edge.

"I can't believe you!" She sits up, "you're really stopping?"

"No," he touches her again in the same spot inside, "I was giving you a chance to catch your breath."

They both smile as their lips meet and she falls onto the forest floor in ecstasy. Those fingers, he pumps inside of her again, hitting the same place over and over and over until she is humping his fingers. Then it takes over her, and she is shaking so hard she can't move.

He laughs watching her. She is completely naked and all he has done is remove his armor and katanas and opened his haori. She is covered in sweat and trembling from the pleasure he has given her. "Roll over."

"Oh this," she stumbles trying to get on all fours. "I can't move." She's still shaking from the after effects of her orgasm.

He nips at her neck and lifts her off the forest floor onto her hands and knees. He gives her no warning before entering. "Shall we see if I can make you finish again?"

She gathers her hair from over her shoulder and moves it to the side. "Only, mhh," the first thrust hits her, she widens her legs. "if…you…" he continues pushing against her.

"Can't finish your sentence?" He beats into her again.

"Ah!...Deeper?"

He has her now and she knows it. She widens again, arching for him so he can push himself further inside of her. "Harder," she whimpers under his pressure. He knows what she likes and she knows it. "Oh," she digs her nails into the soil.

"Try to be quiet," he licks her cheek playfully before the next thrust nearly knocks her over.

She once asked him what his obsession with this position was. Trust and submission was part of it, but as the years ticked by he admitted that it also gave him full control and like this, she was shielded and protected by his body, the way they were meant to be. His fingers find her sweet spot again and she's stifling the need to howl. They aren't in their home which means if she's not careful the whole village will hear them. "Don't move," he demands of her while one arm holds her torso still. Then he loses control and he's jamming himself so quickly inside of her, hitting that spot he had with his fingers that she screams once then she is climaxing so hard her hands shake and she can't move. "Don't move," he slams into her one last time. She feels his seed filling her. They both know it won't result in another child. He hovers over her until the last drops come out then he pulls them both to the forest floor.

"Mmh," she curls into his chest no longer caring that she has nothing to wear. He removes his haori and hands it to her after pulling his hikama back on. "You liked that."

"Very much," he whispers in her ear. "I have to leave again."

The words cut through her. "We're supposed to be having family time right now," she swallows to avoid the tears.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't feel you. Where did you go?"

"I was here," she says firmly, hoping he can't smell the lie crossing her lips.

He rubs his forehead with his fingers then kisses her brow.

"How long?" She kisses the underside of his chin.

"It will be for some time."

"You really can't tell me?" She knows he is hiding something too. "What's going on?"

"It's better if you don't know."

"How long?"


	7. Interlude II-Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taka decides what to do with Nina.

**Interlude II**

**Before**

There are things she didn't think about when she decided to keep the child with her. They were simple things like, food and not knowing where to acquire food for herself or the child. In the castle, all of her needs were provided for. At least she knew what to feed the child. Harutoga visited often and she still remembered more than eighty years before when Tsukimaru brought a human home. Chichiue had nearly decapitated Tsukimaru for bringing her and risking their security, but he had fallen in love and the girl's family had died in the Truku War. He wanted permission before bonding her. Chichiue wasn't happy at all. He wanted Tsukimaru to bond a pure-blooded demon or at least someone with more dog-demon blood in them. He had four hanyous.

That was when Taka learned about sex. She had sat outside the door listening to the moaning only to get in trouble from her father. She was still a virgin. Sesshomaru and Natsuki hadn't let her near anyone. She tried to seduce one of the ones that was more than human but less than pure-blooded, but it failed horribly. She didn't know what she was doing and Sesshomaru caught her with her skirt down, literally and nearly killed the person trying to sleep with her. She never tried again. Being lectured on the risks of going into heat too soon stopped her.

She flew across the ocean into China. It was then she learned that the Fox Demons watched the borders for her father. She was stopped by one she had seen in her father's castle. He had long red hair and big green eyes with a few tails sticking out of his back. She couldn't think of a good excuse as to why she was taking the child out of the country and they had been introduced before. She gassed him with her claws keeping the child's face wrapped in her mokomoko and flew faster over the ocean. He yelled for her stop, but didn't mention the child. She knew she was in the clear.

Around then the child started squirming in her arms. They landed in a forest near the eastern shore. She put the child down just as she started screaming. There were tall bamboo shoots and a source of fresh water nearby. That was when she learned that the girl had a few hand signs to communicate. The child would hold a cupped hand to her mouth when she was thirsty and when she was hungry her fingers would close almost like the beak of a duck and she would peck at her own lips. She cupped herself when she needed to pee and Taka wasn't a big fan of that one. She taught her instead to make her fingers look like rainfall. "This is going to be interesting isn't it?" Taka watched as the girl felt around the forest. She started signing for something else Taka had no idea what it was and then she fell down, tripping on some logs and started crying.

Taka sat down with her. The girl sniffed her and tried to run. "No…no…" Taka covered her mouth, "you can't hear me. Okay," she moved the girl's hair behind her shoulders. She kept shrieking animalistic howls. "What was I thinking? How can you be Chichiue's lover?"

Suddenly the girl picked up Taka's mokomoko and rubbed it against her cheek smiling. That gave the demoness an idea. She had only done it a few times in the past. Her father had said that if he had wanted he could look like a dog humans kept as pets in their homes. She forced her transformation to remain minimal and turned into a white dog. She nuzzled and licked the girl's face. She led the girl through the forest, until she found something for them both to eat. There was a berry bush she gave to the child and for herself she caught a rabbit.

The child started signing for food again and then Taka remembered that humans eat meat too. "How the hell do I cook? Fire?" She didn't have matches and she couldn't create fire. The girl continued crying. Taka didn't have matches, and her yoki couldn't make fire but then she wondered if she could heat the whip hot enough. That didn't work either. So she decided to wait until the child stopped crying and fell asleep. Eventually she did and they were flying again. Taka transformed back into her human form and eventually they landed in a city. She flew into an alley and used her nose to find food. She landed behind a restaurant. "You stay," she pushed the girl against the wall.

The girl started walking down the dank black alley. Her feet splashed in puddles.

"No I said stay…great you can't talk," Taka growled, transforming back into the dog and pushed her nose into the child's stomach. When the girl tried walking off again, she pushed her back against the wall. She bit down on her fingers enough to make sure the child felt the deep throated growl.

She whimpered but then stayed put.

 _Finally,_ Taka thought to herself as she ran out of the alley. She found an open window in the kitchen leapt through the window. Her body fluidly transformed into her humanoid form. She hid behind a large shelf filled with bread and glanced at the clothes that everyone else wore, then her own. _They would dress me traditionally._ She had no idea how to shop for herself. She knew that she would need money, something she hadn't thought of before leaving Japan. _Great…_ she walked around the shelf pulling her hair back into a braid. She closed her eyes, forcing her mokomoko to disappear. She pulled two loaves of bread off the shelf then jumped back through the window changing into her dog-form before pushing some bread into the hand of the child. She watched as the girl ate. The child was a train wreck. She took big bites out of it, some of it fell out of her mouth, she smacked so loudly it hurt Taka's ears. She whined, standing up then pushed the girl's mouth shut while she chewed. When the mouth opened she nipped at her fingers and took a small bite handing it to the girl. When the little girl's mouth opened wide and smacked, she nudged it shut with her wet nose.

 _Now for money,_ Taka sat and thought while she ate. _Chichiue comes to China often…I can't stay here._ As the child finished she led her down another alley. They needed different clothing. The child was dressed in old rags and in her humanoid form she wore elaborate kimonos made of the finest silk. She suddenly had an idea if she could find one. Strangely despite the technological revolution, China still had many payphones. She found one transforming into her human form she kept her mokomoko wrapped around the little girl's waist to keep her from wandering. She picked up the payphone and searched for resell shops. She found an address then glanced around. It was afternoon, people were milling around. She was surprised no one said anything about the big white fluffy mass sticking out of her back or the raggedy little girl she had. Taka didn't look like the people around her. They had black hair and slanted eyes like those in Japan but spoke an entirely different language. _Okay…I can do this…_

She pushed the girl into another alleyway and transformed back into her dog-form. She led the girl down one street, then another and another until she found what she was looking for. They found their way into the back alley. She did it again asking the girl to stay against the wall in a corner. She switched again finding her way into the shop. The woman greeted her, Taka simply waived and said hello in Japanese. The woman gave her a thumbs up. Taka pointed to the fine silks she was wearing then at the other clothes. _Money talks, that's what Chichiue said._

She was able to hock her fancy clothes for regular T-shirt and jeans as well as clothes she thought would fit the girl with some money left over and a bag to carry things. She thanked the shop owner and found the little girl still waiting for her.

And that was how they continued their journey. Taka had many new things to learn. The money lasted them until they made it into England and at that point she had to figure something else out. She learned about computers and iPhones and centuries of things she had missed locked away in the castle. She spent several days in the library trying to figure out what happens to human children who don't have parents. Of course that meant learning to type in a language her father had only somewhat taught her. He spoke English fluently and spent time teaching her to speak it. The century they spent in America, she was left at home in the castle. She fumbled through the computer and found that the best schools for deaf and blind children were in the United States. She knew she couldn't fly over the ocean. The child wouldn't sleep that long and she couldn't fly for that long.

 _Orphan?_ Taka exhaled upset. _She's going to end up in a foster home._ She decided to type in "deaf-blind schools" next. _Chichue also said a good education is worth the cost._ He ought to know, he had done it twice. She found schools in the United States, one in particular in San Francisco caught her attention. _That's it. I'm taking her there so she can learn to communicate._ Which led to another search about orphans in the United States. _Foster homes…_ she won't have a family. She glanced down at the little girl snuggled into an invisible part of her mokomoko. _I'm sorry little one…_

"Dammit," she sighed then lowered her head against the computer screen. She had gotten good at keeping the child near her. She was hungry, tired and had half a mind to go back to Japan, or call her father to rescue her from her own stupidity.

"Hi," she heard someone say from behind her.

"Hi," she said with a heavy accent.

"Are you Swedish?"

Taka started laughing, "Japanese."

It was a young man with dark hair and blue eyes. He was taller than her and smelled of something foreign she wasn't sure. "Maybe I can help you?"

She opened her mouth then closed it thinking it would be safe. Her little girl slept by her feet on the ground while Taka did her research. "Help what?" English was not her strong suit.

"Let's go for a walk. Do you want get a drink? Something to eat?"

Taka let his smell drip into her senses. He smelled wrong but behind his backside she saw a fat wallet full of cash. "Sure," she answered and then lifted the little girl off the floor carrying her.

"Who is that?" The greasy brown coated man asked her.

"Little sister," Taka answered.

"You don't look Japanese. What are those marks on your neck," he traced the markings on Taka's throat.

She had half a mind to slap his hand off her skin but she had an idea. She knew what he would want. If Chichiue could kill night robbers five hundred years ago, she figured robbing this guy wouldn't be that far out of the question. She followed him into an alleyway then into a bar. They sat down at a booth. "Hey you want a drink?"

She nodded her head. He passed her something and Taka had to force herself not to laugh. She could smell it was laced with something that didn't belong in it. It wouldn't work on her, neither would the alcohol. "So how old are you?"

"How old I look?" She said seductively. She had learned a few things about getting what you wanted from a man from her mother. Her mother always seemed to be able to get her father to do what she wanted.

"Young. You old enough to drink that?" He pointed at the drink he gave her.

"I bet I older than you think," she sipped the drink through the green straw, licking the tip. "You buy food for little sister. I do what you want."

He turned around to flag down a waiter.

Taka had to hold back herself from puking, the place smelled like stale alcohol and human sweat. She handed the girl the bowl of chips helping her hands find them, then switched their cups so the man was drinking from hers. She smiled innocently, waiting. Within moments the man was slurring his speech and nearly falling out of his chair. "Baka," Taka giggled leaning over and plucking his wallet from his back pocket. She filched the money and tugged on the girl's arm. "I need to think of a name for you."

As soon as they were out of the restaurant and into the alley she changed into her dog form and led the girl to another alley where it was warmer and cleaner. The child curled up on her for a while, sleeping. _Next stop America…_ she told herself proudly. _I'll make sure you go to the best school. Did I steal enough money?_


	8. Sesshomaru Past II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru must say goodbye to Rin and spend an extended period in his mother's castle.

**Sesshomaru-Past**

"A month?" She questions him upset that he will be gone for so long. "Why can't I come?"

He wraps her in his own outer layer while he holds her against his chest. "It's too dangerous." She is warm and damp against him with the most intoxicating soft skin he loves stroking with his claws. He is out of breath. He enjoys how she folds into his body like a piece of a puzzle. She wraps a slender arm over his chest. The only hitch in his plan to make her stay quiet while he built her up, let her fall and built her up again was that it took longer than usual. She held out until his tongue was sore, and his fingers felt like they were calloused.

"Since when has your mother's home ever been dangerous for me?" Her face wrinkles in confusion and the slightest tang of hurt seeps into their bond.

He can't tell her that he has to avert another disaster because he took a human lover. The hurt in her eyes and worry is enough for him. "Trust me," is all he manages to get out. "You will return home with Hisato and Katsumoto. I will return in a month, perhaps sooner. If you need me, you know how to send for me."

"Will you see her?" Her eyes cast over in a haze. Worry permeates their bond.

Those words. After years, she still questions his loyalty. Afterall why shouldn't she? He is bound to two now and one of them he has relegated to the sidelines asking for patience while he enjoys his days with the one that he truly loves. "I will not," it's a lie. He has already seen her and if Kensaku has his way, it will happen again and again until he yields to his instincts. It would be so much easier to just have her assassinated but she was innocent in their affair, a tool of manipulation by Touma. He called her, "sweet one," because at her core she was innocent and young, still sweet like the first fruits of spring. She will never be his heart, but he is fond of her none the less.

She doesn't answer, she only cries and shakes against him. They have had nothing but weeks together for several years. He finds the action odd. "What is it?" He strokes the shoulder bare shoulder against his chest.

"We were supposed to have more time together."

There are no words to answer that. "I love you," he nudges her neck with his nose. "I will always love you."

"I know," she wipes her eyes. "I hate being without you," she hugs him.

"I am empty without you," he whispers in her ear as he comforts his lover. They had long ago forgiven each other for the events that had driven them apart. She even asks about Tsukimaru from time to time. He had just learned to crawl the last Sesshomaru visited his son. He had fangs and two bottom incisors. He wasn't nearly as mischievous as Yuki was at this size, age is irrelevant. He won't stop looking like a baby until he is twenty years old. Regardless of his conception, his love for Tsukimaru remains.

"You hurt my chin," she rubs the area where his fingerprints remain. "Why do you have to be so rough? Angry is one thing, rough is another."

Her skin is bruised where he manhandled her face, proof that once again she is human and can't match his demon tendencies. He once saw his father haul his mother into a room by her arm, she never complained of pain. _Humanity._

He exhales heavily moving her hand. He sets his lips against the bruised skin manipulating their bond, removing her pain and healing her bruise. "I'm sorry. Who was he?" He doesn't like that someone had their hands on her, even more he finds it strange that the person smells so similar to himself and not, all at once. She smells like pastries, fried food and other more sulfuric smells he cannot name.

"No one."

She is lying and he can't fathom why. He pulls her tighter to him, knowing that he will have to leave soon. "So this is how we will leave things between us?" He picks stray leaves from her hair. She would rather wear it up, but he likes when it is down. So she wears her hair down to make him happy and ties it up while he is gone. Life has been simpler. He travels to check his borders while she is cycling. It makes it easier because he has no fondness for human blood or the way it smells when it exits her body. There is a love and comfort he experiences with her. He knows it will not happen with any other.

"You're lying too," she folds her knees to her chin. "Why can't you tell me what's happening there? Is it her again?"

He only shakes his head as moves closer to her kissing her neck. The forest is a quiet solace to the darkness surrounding them. The wind whistles past them blowing their hair in the wind. She leans her head against his shoulder, kissing his mouth. "I love you," she whispers to him.

"And I you," he answers as he always does. Their tongues meet, their lips heat each other and for a while he forgets what is awaiting him at his mother's castle.

"Oi!" Inuyasha calls him as he exits the trees with Rin. She is still dressed in his outer layer and is doing her best to look like she wasn't just ravished but her hair is frizzy and unkempt, his lips left marks on her shoulders and the dress she was wearing before is missing. There wasn't enough of it left after he shred it for her to put it back on. And now she smells of him and their sex, the way she should.

Inuyasha has Tetsusaiga drawn, the blade shines black.

Sesshomaru gives Rin a push out of the way not a moment too soon. Meido blades come slashing into the forest floor. This area is already damaged from years of battle. It's as if the trees gave up growing again. Sesshomaru removes Bakusaiga and sends voltaic energy at his brother that is blocked with the sheathe. They both smirk and throw their katanas aside. Tenseiga and Tetsusaiga block attacks from demonic energy, it doesn't mean they can't tear each other apart with their claws. Inuyasha attacks first aiming for the throat.

"Impetuous," Sesshomaru slaps the wrist out of the way and trips his brother.

The hanyou lands with a thud, slamming his chin into the dirt. He spins around and trips Sesshomaru, then leaps on top of him. Their hands grapple for necks to crush. Somehow Inuyasha has gained the upper hand while they roll like two twisted logs in the dirt. "You're distracted." The hanyou lands on top of Sesshomaru, pinning his legs with his own.

He could transform and end this, but why waste so much energy on a half-breed? Instead he releases dokkasu from his claws burning Inuyasha's shoulders. "Does it hurt?" He scoffs.

If he is in pain Sesshomaru can't tell. The skin on Inuyasha's neck bubbles.

"Stop it you two!" The Miko yells at him from the bushes. Long ago she removed the beads from Inuyasha's neck. She can't make his face hit the floor like she used to which means she can't break up the fight.

Both their hands tighten on the windpipes, causing the other to choke slightly. He won't yield. He pushes Inuyasha backward, the momentum causes his brother to stumble then fall. He has won again. It's enough for now.

"Next time I'll win," Inuyasha laughs.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome calls him, her face is lined with worry. The years have not been as kind to the Miko as they have to Rin. The seven years difference between them is entirely too noticeable. Her hair has greyed around the sides, her face has lines. Her hands are calloused from years of living in the Edo era. She is out of breath by the time she makes it to the two of them, "it won't open. No matter what we do. It won't open!"

Sesshomaru hears her worry and joins the gathering crowd by the well. The children are playing together, Tatsuo his great-nephew, Yuki, Harutoga and Taiyomaru, while Katsumoto sits under a tree observing. Hisato is next to the well, with Sota and Taisho. "What about Mayumi and Izayoi?" Sota asks worried.

"I don't know. It's never been this bad before. It's like it's rejecting my power," the Miko places hands on the splintered wood.

Taisho joins her. The swirl of power makes the hair on his arms raise. It's enough to subdue him and that makes him rigid. There is something comforting about knowing that there are none that can challenge him. But then he sees it, the power swirls then backlashes against them, throwing the mother and the son to the ground. They land with harsh thuds knocking over a few children in the process. Taiyomaru starts crying, because his cousin's elbow connected with the child's eye. Sesshomaru stands next to his youngest son and rubs the skin around the eye to soothe him.

Kagome is hysterical. She drags him into the trees and says, "I can't get it open. I can't. You saw…it threw me backwards. I…Sesshomaru promise me please," she is desperate. It doesn't flatter her. "Promise me you'll take care of them?"

His heart flatlines. He is almost sure he knows what she is asking, but he has been told over and over, his kind no longer exist in her future, "what are you asking me?"

"If I can't get it open and it stays shut this time like it did last time, please take care of Mayumi and Izayoi?" Her eyes say more than her mouth does. They are a lighter brown than Rin's, but tinted with something he cannot name. He's never been good with emotions.

"Are you saying I'm alive in this distant future of yours?" He loves his nieces as much as his nephews although he has barely seen them in the last few years.

"I can't say," she's lying again but he can accept that.

"If I am alive in this future, you can trust that I will care for them. The well will open again Miko," he attempts to reassure her but there is a part of him that feels concern. Something dark is brewing and he doesn't know what it is or why it is giving him pause. First his mother with the ridiculous complaint from Kensaku now the Well.

"My home is here in this village. My family protected the shrine that was built here. You just have to remember where Goshinboku is and you'll find my home," she suddenly hugs him.

He holds his hand up avoiding touching her. He is already in hot water for intimate contact with another female years before. The last thing he needs is for that to happen with this one. "Release me," the words come more firmly than he intends as he pushes Kagome away from him. He leaves her wilting alone in the grass. "Hisato," he calls to the demon that has guarded Rin for the last thirteen years. He comes out of his hiding place, "take Rin and the children home, tonight." He can't risk an attack here, there would be too many casualties and they have already failed in the past against his own kind.

"Yes Sesshomaru-sama," he is ever the faithful servant.

He finds his children, hugging them goodbye. It's never easy to explain long absences. He can't tell them the meeting involves their half-brother they only see when he is not home. Rin thinks he doesn't know, but he sensed on more than one occasion Natsuki's bond moving when he left their home. Taiyomaru loves his brother unlike the disdain that Yuki and Harutoga hold for him. Tsukimaru is another innocent pawn that was played in Touma's grand scheme to the tear them apart. There is peace knowing that Rin and Natsuki have found a way to get along, even if it is behind his back.

Yuki takes the news the hardest. She screams and cries, frustrated that he has to leave. "You're supposed to be home for three weeks! You've been home for two days!" She's a teenager in the body of a child.

"A month is so long," Harutoga kicks a smooth stone with his toes. They look the same age now. He stands as tall as his sister.

There are no words. He won't apologize, he returns to protect them from the fallout. He can't explain, they wouldn't understand. Taiyomaru pulls him down by the shoulder and whispers in his ear, "say hello to Tsuki for me," he kisses his father's cheek. Sesshomaru tickles the little boy, eliciting high pitched giggles that that nearly hurt his ears.

Rin waits by the trees wiping her eyes. He still feels a hint of frustration and jealousy that someone else managed to put their lips on her. She is his, precious, an unshared commodity. He stalks across the moistened ground and holds her hand. The other hands glides across her jaw pulling her mouth to his, "my heart," he whispers the epitaph that describes who she is to him. The source of all he is. He tastes tears in her mouth, fingers tremble along his cheeks.

"Come home to me," she says quietly.

"I always do," he reminds her.

"What if you didn't one day?" She's twenty nine seasons now. So different than the child he left in this village. "I've seen you at your worse Sesshomaru. My skin is crawling. Something's wrong. The well stopped working, our nieces are trapped."

"They will be fine. It did this once before and they are with family," he tries to reassure her. "I'll be home as quickly as I can."

She nods, lips compressed and forehead wrinkled with worry.

One more kiss is all he can spare. His mother said three days. Kensaku couldn't wait three seconds after he left her home. Time is of the essence. He wonders if he will have to sleep with Natsuki again in order to save the lives of his lover and children. Sometimes the greatest prizes are worth the highest price, but for once he wonders if the cost is too high.


	9. Kagome-Past II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A peddler comes selling treats, Rin returns home and Kagome enjoys a quiet moment with Inuyasha

**Kagome-past**

Her heart is heavy as she packs a bag of food for Rin and the children to take back on their trip home. Riding on Aun, it will take most of the evening. She tried to get them to stay but this time it was their guard who shook his head vehemently and said they had to leave. There were glances passed between Rin and Hisato and several angry words before Rin finally conceded. "Is something going on?" Her hands shake thinking of her children that are on the other side of the well. She knows he is there, but did he take them? Will they be happy? Why isn't the Well opening?

"I think there might be trouble," Rin answers holding Yuki on her lap. For a moment jealousy flashes through the Miko. She has the same ears as Izayoi and it's not fair that her sister in-law to hold her daughter while her own precious ones are trapped on the other side.

Taisho runs in with a smile on his face, "there's a peddler coming. Oka, can we go buy some treats? They have the sweet balls of rice that To-san likes."

Mechanically she hands him money and follows the flow of villagers to the peddler. He is laden with a large wagon with two handles sticking from the front. Children jump around him asking for sweet rice in different colors. In the past Shippo would join the children, but he isn't in the village. He is off training again and won't be back for days.

"Can we go too?" Yuki asks her mother.

"I have for us," Rin picks up the pastry bag she brought back with her from the future. She takes out the treats and hands them to her children then offers them to Hisato and Katsumoto. The two guards sniff the chocolate wafting off the pastries and decide to split one when they've returned. Chocolate is an insidious poison to dog-demons, neither one of them can resist. She knows that by evening her children will be complaining of upset stomachs, but a little chocolate never killed anyone.

Rin's children gather around her licking their fingers as Kagome leaves the hut. Inuyasha is already there with Taisho. Sota hasn't left the well. Kagome walks up behind her son enjoying the early evening air, the grey of the clouds and how it makes the yellow-green reeds of grass that much brighter. "Good evening," she says to the peddler.

"Good evening," it's a simple alto that flows from his lips. "Would you like sweet rice? I also have other housewares," he points to his load. There are pans for cooking, kettles, chopsticks and even fine combs with jewels.

"Will you be here long?" Inuyasha wonders. He loves sweet-rice and has already eaten three.

Kagome senses something she isn't sure, "what's your name?"

"Yashida," he bows politely, the straw hat covers his face as he does.

Miroku, Sango and a gaggle of their children are by the cart now. They've finally ceased having children. Sango begged for something after the tenth child. Kagome gifted her with condoms to stop the flow of children. Their eldest are married, they are grand-parents like she is. Sango is a year older than Kagome and has already aged more. It makes the Miko sick to know that because of the medicine in her time, she will likely live longer than her friends. She wonders if her life will be extended the way Rin's was because Inuyasha is already nearing three-hundred years. She continues watching as the peddler doles out balls of rice to the waiting children and to her son. She buys extra for Tatsuo.

"Is it possible you spent time in a temple?" Miroku asks the peddler as he counts out the coins from his six younger children purchases. He has made more than a name for himself in the last eighteen years as a slayer and a Monk.

"When I was younger, my village was destroyed by demons," Yashida says simply. "After that I was sent to a temple in the Eastern Provinces. I stayed for some time but I was never very good at calling on my spiritual power."

The Miko exhales, knowing that is what she sensed.

"Strange," he passes a rice ball to Taisho, "I sense both yoki and reiki in you."

"I'm a hybrid," her son says proudly. "This is my father," he points to Inuyasha.

"A hanyou? Miko you keep interesting company," his eyes are black and there is something about the way he says it that gives Kagome pause.

"Have we met before?" Strange memories float through her mind like a mirage. So much time was spent travelling while chasing Naraku, she no longer recalls who she met and where. They made allies and enemies along the way, but his face seems familiar.

"I've never been through this village before," he says quietly. "Enjoy the rice balls."

She bows turning back to the well. Sota sits quietly against it with Sayako at his side. Tatsuo has fallen asleep against his father. She touches the Well, even that makes her skin prickle. "I don't understand."

"They're with your mother," Inuyasha says. "They'll be okay."

"Is that really how you feel?" She is furious with him for being so calm.

"Is it wrong?" So much time together and he still doesn't know how to respond.

"I'm worried Ka-san," Sota says staring down at the well. "If we can't get through, what about them?"

"They'll be okay," she says more to herself. _Please take care of them._ "Do you want to take a rice-ball for when he wakes up?"

Sayako shakes her head, "sugar doesn't sit well with him. Too much of my blood," she smiles proudly.

Kagome bends down to stare at her grandchild. He has a barely visible crescent moon from his father, claws and dark skin. He resembles his mother more than his father. She isn't sure how much of what he is. A quarter demon father with a pure blooded mother, with some human thrown in there. She touches his forehead, "he's beautiful. I'm so happy you two came."

As they walk back to the hut Inuyasha holds her hand, Rin has already left. "They were in a hurry. Did they say why?"

"His royal highness demanded they return to the safety of the barrier. I don't know why," Kagome sits down by the fading fire. Taisho sits in the corner, his face crestfallen. "We'll figure it out." She tells him.

"Maybe the Well is punishing us," her son says.

"For what?" She asks him.

"Breaking the rules…I couldn't go back to Ojisama's, not yet. Once I know it won't open, really won't open. We have to keep trying. My sisters…" He ceases speaking choosing to lay down and read instead.

"Inuyasha," she whispers as she lays down next to him on their shared mat. Their house is so quiet now without their children clamoring all over them. The tears finally come in earnest for the children she hopes aren't lost. "What do we do? If it's shut?"

"I don't know," he says quietly stroking her hair. He kisses her lips then turns to his son, "go read somewhere else."

"You're as bad as O-ji-sama and Obasan. They can't keep their hands off each other," he rolls his eyes as he stands and exits their hut.

Inuyasha folds himself around Kagome wiping her tears as he removes her layers. He unties the lavender obi he gave her as a thirty eighth birthday present. He has never been able to offer her the riches that his brother gives his lover, but their home has always been filled with love. She gasps at his touch. His hand slides down her shoulder, under the material of her sea green kimono. The brush of his fingers against the raw skin sends shivers down her spine. She leans onto the bamboo mat of their hut, her head resting on a pillow as she opens for him. He removes his own clothes and lays on top of her stomach. His mouth embraces her, together they breathe fire.

Her nails dig into the skin of his back as his hands explore. They begin with her breasts, the pointed buds hardening as he circles them with one finger. He laces them with his lips, making her hiss in pleasure. Twenty years together and he knows her so well. Tonight isn't about experimenting, it's about comfort. He nestles himself in between her legs finding her warmth. "Inuyasha," she sighs as he enters. Her legs wrap around his waist as he kisses down her sensitive stomach.

The valley is no longer what it once was. She still has a single line down the center of her stomach and on the sides, but age is catching up to her. His removes himself from inside of her as his hands run down the length of her sides. His tongue traces her navel, and then a single finger presses where she is most sensitive, "Kami," she gasps pulling his face back up to hers. Their lips meet again and in between battles of their tongues she begins moaning as her fire builds.

"They'll be okay," he tells her confidently as he slides inside of her again. "Oh Kagome…I love you," he strains as her hips rise, sheathing him deeper.

She can feel the familiar burn, the rise of her orgasm as it slices through her. The wider she parts, the easier he can thrust against the spot that gives her the most pleasure. She is out of breath within minutes of his entrance. Her legs wrap around his hips, she holds onto his shoulders. She feels herself flexing below, increasing her pleasure. She moans against his lips.

His hands find her breasts then she feels herself come alive. She loses her senses as the last thrust has her begging for more, and shrieking in pleasure. They part sweat soaked and silent as he pulls a blanket over them. There's nothing left to do but hope that one day she will see her daughters again.


	10. Interlude III-Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taka struggles with taking care of Nina

**Interlude III**

**Before**

Taka didn't filch enough money that day. He had around five hundred pounds in his back pocket. She learned quickly it wasn't enough to buy a ticket anywhere and then there was the issue that she had no ID. The child had no ID and for the week she had been with the girl, she still hadn't come up with a name for her. She spent most of her time while the child was awake in her dog form. She booked them a hotel in Bristol while she thought about what to do. She picked up the remote and started playing with the TV. "Kami, Chichiue and Haha-ue didn't even let me watch MTV." She found a movie that looked interesting then sat on the bed while the child roamed around the room. Whenever she got close to Taka, the woman reached out with her mokomoko. It was exhausting staying in dog form for long periods of time but it seemed the only way to calm the girl.

The other lesson that the young demoness learned is that she was a beauty. She had purchased several pairs of low rise jeans and shirts that revealed her shoulders and chest. She was thin, willowy with curves and a slender neck that was striped. When she roamed in her human form, she made no attempt to hide her claws or facial stripes and men seemed very much interested in her. She crossed her legs and thought to herself, "I need an ID and a passport and you need a name."

The girl was touching the TV, feeling the curves and nearly knocked it over.

"No," Taka pushed the TV back and used her mokomoko to move the girl's hand, "don't do that. Why am I talking to you?!" She stamped her foot. To her surprise the girl stamped her foot back. Taka stamped twice, the girl stamped twice in return. A steady smile spread across Taka's face. "So you can learn. Maybe your family just didn't know any better."

She flipped through the channels again and found another movie, "what the hell is this?" As the screen played she heard a man talking to his daughter. She spoke to animals, charming them. The little girl's name was Nina. "Nina," Taka bounced onto the bed, "I like that. Now you need a last name," she picked up the telephone book and flipped through the pages. "Chichiue fashioned a last name after his human lover, you. But I'm not going to name you Rin, or make your last name Rinata. It's bad enough Haha-ue lives in her shadow. I want you to be your own person," she folded over her knees and rubbed her forehead. "Oooh, Hawthorne. I like that. You're Nina Hawthorne. Not that you understand what I am saying."

The child climbed onto the bed and curled against Taka's mokomoko. Her eyes quickly closed, her breaths became even. Taka touched the marks around her eyes. For a while she stared at the phone thinking to call her father or brother. _Chichiue is going to be so angry. What am I supposed to do with you?_

The biggest thought plaguing her mind was what she was going to do after she was expected to return home. There was something helpless about the child and she didn't feel right just dumping her somewhere and then leaving to return to the castle in the sky and if she was honest with herself, she was having fun for the first time in a few centuries. There was something supremely lame about the fact her parents never allowed her to leave and that her mother was living in the past. They had one functioning phone in the castle for emergencies only. Chichiue kept a computer hidden, because Natsuki melted the first seven he brought back. Taka exhaled heavily stroking the girl's hair. _I'm not going back,_ she thought quietly, _I'm going to stay with her. It's the right thing to do. Nina Hawthorne,_ she grinned staring at the sleeping child.

Several days later she led the child through a shipyard until she found a Queen Mary that was bound for the US. She smuggled herself in her dog form and the child into the cargo hold. At night Taka snuck into the kitchen and got food for herself and Nina. The trip was long and exhausting. Nina spent the entire time puking while Taka cleaned up after her. It was the longest eleven days of Taka's life. Considering she was over three hundred and fifty years old that was saying something.

When they landed in New York, Taka figured out that she needed to exchange her money and that she landed on the wrong side of the United States. And without a passport or any form of ID, she couldn't get on public transportation. She had already been gone from home for three weeks. Taka transformed in a cold alleyway leading Nina by her mokomoko. She needed to find a phone. She wasn't going to get anywhere if at least she didn't have an ID. They went to the library where Taka made the girl sit next to her. Nina closed her blind eyes and swirled around in a chair.

Libraries, her father loved them. He spent centuries building a giant library in their home in the sky. She spent her time their often studying under him. She knew a fair bit about medicine. She called up a page on how to obtain an ID which was pointless. She was born three hundred and fifty years ago, she didn't have a birth certificate. She didn't have a social security card. She smacked her head against the computer screen frustrated. "I don't have a social security card for you either," she pat the girl on her head.

The girl bat at her hand.

"Nina…we need to find a phone." She wrapped her tail around Nina's small waist and dragged her through the library. She picked up the phone and tried dialing Tsukimaru's cellphone number. She was met with a dial-tone that said she couldn't make international phone calls. So she walked up to one of the library workers, her mokomoko still invisible, "I need call Japan." She would have to spend more time working on her English.

"Sure," the gentleman looked young. He has thick glasses and spikey hair with a morning goatee. "You just need a phone card."

"Eh phone card? Nina," she warned the girl tugging her back to her.

"What's wrong with her?"

"Nothing," Taka shot back annoyed. "You never see blind girl?" Nina paced back and forth reaching out into the air then back to her waist trying to get the mokomoko off her.

"Sorry," he said tapping his fingers on the counter.

"Where this phone card?"

"There are a few shops down the street. What's with the marks on your face?"

Taka didn't answer. She left the library and turned down the street. She found a phone card vendor in one of the shops nearby. She purchased a card then asked for a phone. They had one in the back of the shop. Lifting the receiver she punched the numbers in annoyed and then called Tsukimaru. It rang several times but went to his voicemail. "Tsuki, it's Taka. I'm going to call back in a few minutes, please answer."

She paced while waiting. She tapped her fingers on the wall deep in thought. She needed an ID, badly. She raised the phone and called again. This time he answered, "Taka where are you? Chichiue and Haha-ue are beside themselves!"

"America," she said quietly into the phone.

"You need to come home."

"No, I'm not leaving Tsuki. I can't believe you wouldn't let me leave her in the orphanage! You know Chichiue would have made sure her health was cared for!"

"Taka just leave her somewhere and come home!" Tsukimaru bellowed into the phone.

"You're hurting my ears," she hissed rubbing the inside of her ear. "I'm not coming back. Humans live for what seventy or eight years? I'll come back after she dies."

"What if you go into heat?"

"I'll have sex with a human!"

"If you get pregnant?"

"Then I'll have a baby and take care of it! Tsukimaru shut up! This is all your fault anyway. You're the one that made me leave the castle. I don't want to go back. How do I get an ID. I need an ID."

"Taka you are so naïve-"

"Tsuki…just tell me how to get an ID. I'm running out of money," Taka puffed her hair out of her face. "Nina stay," she nudged the girl's stomach reminding her to stay put.

"You named her Nina?"

"Shut up! The ID Tsuki. I don't have many minutes on this thing. I need to be able to get a phone and the internet, maybe a computer and some new clothes and a job."

"Taka I can send you money."

"No," she refused him. "Did you get an ID?"

"Chichiue got one for me. He had contacts."

"Okay so find me a contact. I just need a social security card or something."

"Let me look hang on," there was clacking on the other end of the phone.

She bit her lip while she waited.

"Which city are you in?"

"New York."

"Okay, there is a chipmunk demon that lives in Manhattan, in Central Park. His name is David. With enough money he can get you an ID. How much do you have?"

"$300.00, how much do I need? Nina," she said again pushing the girl back to the wall.

"You shouldn't have named her."

"And you shouldn't have made me leave. They're really upset?"

"Haha-ue hasn't left her room. She won't stop crying," he almost sounded remorseful. "Chichiue put a missing persons alert on his social media pages. You need to be careful. He has contacts all over the world, you know that."

"So then I'll alter my appearance enough to make sure no one will recognize me," she shook her hair out making sure no one was watching as it turned black. Her skin changed to a darker color.

"You need a thousand dollars," Tsukimaru told her. "Go to a western union I'll wire you money."

"Go to hell," she hung the phone up and left the store. She tugged her ward along with her. "Well Nina, let's go find some idiot who thinks I'm hot to rob again."


	11. Mayumi-Present I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mayumi, Inuyasha and Kagome's daughter plays a trick on her school.

**Mayumi-present**

She crouches down behind one of the walls of the stairwell in the east wing of her school. It's a dingy white with pathetic gold bricks mixed between. Nothing like the lavish marble of the castle she lives in. The east wing is where all the science classes are. She's taking Chemistry, a science she has found quite useful in yielding explosions. At night Ojisama helps her with her school work. He understands the elements better than she does. But she has figured a few things out and knows which ones she needs to use for her project. The only problem is she filched them from a teacher with balding hair and a bad temper. "Higurashi-chan!" He bellows through snake-like lips as he searches the hallways for her.

She keeps her breathing even, the way her Uncle taught her. Escaping this enemy will be easier than the demons in Edo. She lifts her left hand in the air sending white blades flying near her Sensei's nose. He screeches, ducking out of the way. She takes the distraction as her cue to book it. She flies down the stairs into the girls bathroom and pulls out her prizes. She takes out a bowl and mixes the chemicals together until they form a paste. She doesn't have the heightened smell that Sota and Izayoi do, but she knows the mixture is perfect when it just begins to stick. It's flammable and will do exactly what she wants it to. She throws it into two toilets, lights a match and tosses it in, then flushes the toilets. She bolts for the door just as she hears the boom and the explosion of pipes. Water slushes down the hallways with other foul things she laughs at as she runs.

Water rushes up the hallways. Her prize, a job well done, until she slips and loses her footing. She slams face first into a broad chest and lands on her back in a puddle. She raises her brown eyes to stare into the face of the headmaster. "It wasn't me," it comes out defensively and automatically.

"This time we are calling your Uncle," the headmaster says as he lifts her off the ground. His grip hurts her arm. It's not fair. They could have said he was their father or cousin, but no he's her Uncle and she must call him Ojisama or face his wrath.

It takes only a minute for her to release smaller blades from her fingers into the hand that holds her.

The headmaster curses catching her again by the scruff of the neck. He glances down at his bleeding hand.

"Where's the weapon?"

"What weapon?" Mayumi flashes back still trying to get free. She grins like the guilty school girl she is.

"My hand is bleeding," the headmaster, whose nose looks pinched and eyes are bulbous from his bifocals states.

"It wasn't me," this time she's smiling.

"Come to the office now. If you do not comply Higurashi, you will be expelled."

"That's not my name," she whispers in defense as she is escorted to the office. Higurashi is the name she was forced to take when her Uncle obtained papers for her. It was her mother's name, but she feels like somehow her mother has betrayed her by not coming to get them yet. In the Edo Era, there were no last names. The children never obtained birth certificates despite their frequent visits to this world and for six months she has been stuck here. She was happy before when her mother and father could come and go freely. But she knows the truth and wonders what the point is any longer? She wants to hate her mother for abandoning her, for giving up, for every moment she doesn't spends on the other side of the well.

She is sits in the chairs while the headmaster picks up the phone and dials her Uncle's number. She knows she is in trouble. Ojisama is going to be angry and for some odd reason that makes her happy.


	12. Sesshomaru-Present II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru remembers his last moments with Rin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part One  
> Inferno

**Sesshomaru-Present**

He still hasn't managed to start reading the scroll. His fingers hold it as if paralyzed. He hopes that it holds the final key to finding the cure to his tremors. He is certain if he knew how the disease was created, he could reverse the effects it has on his body. When Katsumoto took to his bed, he had to convince the inu-yokai not to kill himself, _give me time. I will find the answer._ Sesshomaru knows what will happen if he dies.

Knowing won't change the effects it has had on his people. Despite his greatest efforts, his species is limited and it is unlikely they will recover in numbers. In a matter of centuries they will be extinct, nothing more than myths and legends.

If only Natsuki would go into heat. He has no explanation for the lack of children they have produced. It's been three and a half centuries since her last period of fertility came. The last time she was in heat was when Rin died. Rin…the mere thought of her name leaves him speechless. He yearns to feel a love like he did from her, to know warmth and completion again. She knew the monster he was inside and loved him despite it.

_She had been getting weaker. The extent of her age was finally catching up to her. She went from gracing the ground with her feet, running circles to keep up with their first grandchild to lying in bed, a husk of what she once was. It was already painful beyond anything he had experienced to keep his distance from Natsuki. Half-a-century before she sent him a letter stating as much. So much was he drawn to her that he no longer visited Tsukimaru in the castle to avoid their inevitable meeting. Aun brought the child to him every other week. He made a promise to Rin. That was all that mattered._

_He and Rin had been unable to make love in twenty years. His body was hungry. Hers was old. He looked like a human twenty-five year old, her age was more than noticeable. Her hair was whiter than his and carried a glow that often hurt his eyes. Her skin was slack and speckled with signs of age. Her teeth were loose. He was forced to spoon-feed her meals. She could only tolerate broths and vegetable soups. There was only so much to be done with his yoki to ease her aches and pain. Her body had finally begun rejecting their bond. The scar on his chest had faded and was barely noticeable. Death was inevitable._

_Natsuki screamed for him, begged him to return. She went so far as sending a letter with Tsukimaru telling him she had been in heat for some-time and needed him. He promised. Rin's time was coming. Natsuki threatened to find someone else to satisfy her needs. He set a guard on her door and had her meals delivered through a rectangular cut opening. Both the outer and inner entrances had been locked for weeks. He promised._

_Rin called him into her room. "I think…" her breaths were staggered, "I'm leaving soon, my love."_

_"My heart," he lay down next to her gathering the remains of her body. And it ached, the thing that beat life into his chest. "Do not torment me so. You say it every morning."_

_"It's hard to stay," a wiry frame curled into his body. Her limbs were too weak to stroke the markings on his face. "Help me?" She begged in frailty. The tips of her fingers rose in pain as she attempted to caress the face of her love._

_He clasped his fingers between hers, bringing them to his face. He hissed at how sensitive his skin was to her touch despite their lack of intimacy. Immediately it rose again, the insatiable call of Natsuki. He groaned rubbing his heart. It was as if the two bonds were at war with each other, laying claim to him._

_"She's calling you," her voice was not the lark-like song it had been in the past. Rather it was vibrato and had fallen to the sound of the calling wind._

_"It can wait," the words were excruciating for him. He knew, his yoki was leaving her body. He could no longer sustain her the way he had in the past. He brushed her finger tips over his stripes then helped her trace the dark crescent moon of his forehead._

_"Did you ever think you would love a human?" She asked that of him often. Somehow concerned in her later years when she was no longer able to satisfy his sensual desires that it had stolen her worth to him._

_"I should have known it would be you," he said so quietly, he was unsure if she heard him._

_"I loved you," she spoke as if she had already passed. "Do you think our souls will meet again?"_

_"I don't know," he tried to control the sound of his voice. Once he was the most fierce dai-yokai, but in his bedchambers surrounded by nothing but the soulmate he met a century and a half before, he was the same broken man she found in the woods. "Wait for me," his voice finally breaks._

_"I will," she coughed. It rattled the bones of her slender frame._

_He offered her water that she refused. "What if I can't talk to you again?"_

_"I will be with you," he reassured her._

_"Please, promise me," it was almost too painful listening to her speak. What strength she had left was fostered into her voice. "It was good, Sesshomaru."_

_A tear washed down his cheek as he held her. "Very good," he agreed readily knowing that this time she would not wake again._

_"I know you'll go to her."_

_That he couldn't answer. He knew he would too. His chest burned daily, his loins craved release that she could no longer give him and Natsuki was in heat. She was desperate. It was getting worse. Tsukimaru begged him to come to the castle to help her. But he promised._

_"Thank you," she trailed off, her breath deepening into a vortex he knew he couldn't follow._

_"It is I, who should thank you," he kissed her mouth as if she was young again wishing that he could force more of his yoki into her body, to help her live just a little longer or that he would die right next to her. She succumbed to age in his arms. He buried her under the boughs of the sakura tree, an eternal resting place next to the daughter they lost._

"Who is my next appointment," his hands continue to tremor as he holds the scroll. He can feel it starting in his legs.

"There's no one. Suguri-san canceled and your next procedure is in two hours. Oji-sama, if you aren't going to read it, may I?" Her golden eyes are already brimming with tears. The six months have been hard on her. He brings them back to Tokyo once a month to say a prayer by the ancient tree and to visit their grandmother as he promised. They ask what happens to their mother. That he knows well, but even that he can't begin to tell them.

"No," he can't let go. There is something addictive about reliving the past. He had been doing it for the last twenty years since Kagome made it through the well. He had pictures again. He had the last visit with Rin who had appeared out of thin air and returned just as quickly. He could still taste her. He refused to wash his clothes from that day just to breathe in her scent. It was already fading from the shirt he wore that day. He yearned to follow her into the afterlife, but it wasn't time, not yet. He hoped by reading the scroll and discovering how the disease was created, he could find a cure to the seizures that were destroying him. "I'll read it."

"Can I read it too? Please?" Izayoi begs him.

"Fine," he motions her over to his shoulder. His thumbs fumble the first time he tries to unroll the he can begin the phone rings.

Izayoi reaches out an arm and lifts it to her ear, "Rinata-sama's office, how can I help you…yes? I'll tell him," she puts the phone on mute, "Mayumi is being sent home for the day."

"Have her walk to my office," he instructs Izayoi.

"He asks that she walk to his office," she is a lady on the phone. He wonders if he should begin the search for her. There is one he considers. For a time he had a human lover but she passed years before. "Ok…I'll let him know," the phone is muted again. "She blew up the septic tank at the school and the headmaster claims she cut his wrist with a knife but he has been unable to locate the weapon. You have to get her. They want to have a meeting with you. Now."

Breathing is all of a sudden very difficult. He has explained on multiple occasions the danger of exposing their kind. The headmaster will find no physical weapon because Mayumi's blades are not made of human metal, they are created by the miniscule yoki she has access to but is deadly to humans. He sets the scroll down webs his fingers together. He lowers his forehead onto his knuckles, noting how his fingers are not making a comfortable pallet. He reaches into the drawer in his desk removing a vial and a needle. "Find a vein, if you can."

"Should I check your ankles?" Izayoi diligently measures the concoction. "How much longer O-ji-sama?"

"Soon," he shakes his head bitterly. "It should have happened already."

"You said soon six months ago when the Well closed," she says as she kneels on the white linoleum floor. She lifts his pant leg. The veins are varicose but she has been able to find one in the past. "I should just go for the one in your neck."

"You don't know how to hit the one in my neck," he reminds her.

"I could try," she shrugs her shoulders.

"Do as you will. You'll be cared for when the day comes," he says as she stands up. He tilts his head to the side and winces when the needle enters his skin. Another side effect of the disease, his pain tolerance is not what it once was. He takes deliberate breaths as the medicine goes into the thick vein beneath his ear settling his tremors but only barely. He puts the scroll away as he stands up rubbing the skin where she put the injection.

"You mean by Natsuki?"

"Natsuki knows to care for you. If she refuses then one of your cousins will," he straightens his shirt as he stands. He tickles her chin with a smirk on his face. "You won't be alone."

"It's ten years until it opens again," she says wiping a tear. "I'll be twenty seven by then, almost twenty eight. I…I want my parents. It's enough that I can't see them, I don't want to lose you too!"

He embraces his niece, knowing in the past he never would. "It will be as it should," he closes his eyes as he holds her, hoping that his body will hold on long enough to find the cure. He's so close. Just a little longer. He puts on his black suit jacket flipping his hair behind his back and walks out the door to pick up his other niece. R _eckless, impetuous, so like her father._


	13. Interlude IV-Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part One  
> Inferno
> 
> Taka takes Nina to a firestation so she can find her a home.

**Interlude IV**

**Before**

They spent more than a week traveling across the United States. If she had it her way, she would have driven. But Taka had no idea how to drive, her father had never taught her. _Why drive when I can fly faster than a car? And humans are so dimwitted they don't know the difference between a shooting star and a flying dog-demon anyway._ He had once had Taiyomaru clock him flying and he easily surpassed 150 miles per hour at top speeds before the seizures had gotten worse. But then thinking of him seizing brought her sorrow. Who was taking care of Chichiue now? She was often the one who made sure he ate enough and slept. She would find him shivering in the shrine he had built for Rin on cold winter nights because his body didn't hold up well to cold any longer and cover him with a blanket. She was the one that made food that his stomach could tolerate. She had even found some recipes that kept Katsumoto from vomiting them back up but kami forbid that Yuki show any gratitude. _He has Haha-ue and his other children,_ was what she told herself. He would be fine without her. He would find the cure to his tremors before they took his life. She was sure of it.

They rode busses by day and at night Taka slept with Nina under the stars. Nina trusted Taka implicitly and never seemed to notice the changes between her human and dog forms. She was able to keep a steady flow of cash by robbing idiots who thought she was a hooker, which allowed them to buy food and sometimes find hotels to sleep in. She just needed to make it to San Francisco where the school for the blind and deaf was. Nina could learn to speak there.

But once they arrived it took one more trip to the library for Taka to figure out what to do with her little girl and she wasn't sure it was the right thing to do. She needed to abandon her, or make her look abandoned to get her into the foster-care system. Foster children automatically got Medicaid which would pay for any treatments the child-needed, including school. There was no way that Taka could afford the payments to the school, a home or anything else for Nina in San Francisco. It was too much.

With a heavy heart and a cramping stomach she led her in dog form to a fire station. The internet said the best place to abandon babies and children was at the fire station. Although if she were human she could be charged with abandonment and endangering a minor, but how would they trace anything back to Taka? She didn't exist. Her ID said her name was, Lucy Donahue. She was so pale, no one would know she was Japanese anyway.

She licked her lips nervously as the child followed her. Nina had learned to walk with one small hand on the dog's shoulder so as not to get lost. Taka knew Nina paid attention to the shifting of her shoulder blades. A bit to the left and she turned with Taka, a bit to the right and she turned again.

They turned the corner to the fire station, it was a monster of a building. It had four garages for their many fire trucks and bright red paint on the walls. Taka walked her through one of the entrances, in between the fire truck and the red bricks with Nina trailing next to her.

A group of men were in the back talking. "Hey!" One of them called to Nina. They ambled up to her. The one who spoke first had blue eyes and a balding head squat down and said, "hey there." He glanced back at the other men for affirmation before noticing her ghost-like white eyes. His hand went up to her face, his thumb traced the scars around her eyes.

Nina roared something unintelligible and attempted to run away. Taka blocked her nudging her forward with her muzzle. She could hear the little heart racing but Taka knew, these were good people.

"Good girl," one of the other men said and attempted to pat Taka on the ass. He had a young face without lines. "Is this your dog?"

"Can she hear us?" another one asked.

Nina was having a full blown melt down. She was crying, kicking and fighting against the firemen. "Where are your parents?"

"She can't hear you Jack," one of the men said, he snapped his fingers next to her ear. Nina's eyes didn't track to the noise and her head didn't move.

"Who is she?"

"I don't know…wait," it was then he noticed that there was a paper pinned to the back of Nina's shirt. It was the same one her parents left. "What is this?"

"It isn't English," said another one. "Except this. Nina Hawthorne. Is that who you are?"

Nina was curled into a ball on the ground sobbing covering her eyes. Taka curled up next to her. _Don't worry little one. I'm not leaving you._ As if to apologize for the stress she caused her little girl, Taka licked the tears around her eyes and nuzzled her nose.

Taka turned around just as one of the men kneeling next to her tried to tie a rope around her neck. She snarled at them in warning, her eyes burned like a vermillion fire. She let her yoki choke them. They backed off quickly. It's one thing to see a pissed off dog, it's another when they are a pure-blooded dog-demon who can emit a dark spiritual power so robut it makes the hair on your arms stand. _Will I be stronger than you one day Chichiue?_

_No little one._

_At least stronger than Tsuki?_

_No._

_Taiyomaru?_

_No._

_Well then what will I be?_

_My daughter._

_You already have a daughter._

_But she isn't you and you aren't Yuki._

_Will I be stronger than her?_

_In might yes, in attitude, you may spare me her antics._

_She called me a bitch._

_She's called me worse._

"Call the pound and Social Services, I think the child was abandoned. Don't touch the dog…I think it's crazy." One of them said nervously.

Taka waited. They were nice to Nina. They brought her food which she allowed them to give her and candy and some sweet smelling juice that reminded her of Japanese oranges. Her parents always thought she was weird for eating them, but she seemed to be the only one that could stomach fresh oranges. One of the firemen, the one called Jack offered Taka some foul smelling crunchy thing in the shape of a bone that she stuck her nose up at. Then he offered something he called a hot dog, she shook her head and he nearly pissed his pants. "Can you understand me?"

She bared her teeth and snarled, sending ripples along her cheeks. This was getting tedious.

After that he brought her a bowl of water and put something else that looked like her nephew's constipated diapers in front of her. She stuck her tongue out at it and slapped the bowl away from her face.

"Wow picky little princess aren't you?"

Nina kept her head against Taka's shoulders petting her fur. A short time later Taka saw another man in uniform come with a woman in a plane brown skirt and shirt. She had a clipboard and a camera in her hand. The officer spoke quietly to the firemen. Taka had already made up her mind that wherever Nina was going she would go too. "What a beautiful dog," the woman said.

"Be careful, she's got attitude."

Taka snorted.

"Well I hate to separate them, but I can't take the dog back to the children's home with me. It's against policy."

Taka hadn't thought of that. The woman bent over to take Nina's hand. Taka lashed out, she nipped at her fingers without breaking the skin. The woman cursed, "dammit. Are you sure she doesn't have rabies?"

"No. I think she doesn't like the idea of being separated from her human," Jack sat down and tried to pet Taka. "Nice doggy."

_GRRRRRRR_

"Okay," he stood up, smoothing her hair. "Can't you take them both?"

Another car arrived. Two women got out dressed in light blue shirts and dark blue pants. Their hair was pulled back in a way Taka could only think meant they were uptight. They carried a long pole that had a loop on the end. _Good luck idiots,_ Taka rose onto her haunches and let out a growl. She hovered over Nina. The pole came at her neck, she grabbed it in her mouth and clamped down. They attempted to pull it out of her mouth only for her to release a discrete amount of dokkasu that sluiced the metal of the pole and broke it.

"Is that dog laughing at us?" One of the women said to the other.

"I told you guys, I don't think she wants to be separated from the girl," Jack sat down on one of the benches. "$100 says you can't get the dog in the truck."

"How did she bite through this?" The red haired woman inspected the end.

"Get the tranquilizer gun," the other woman had short blonde hair.

Her partner got the tranquilizer gun and loaded it. She pointed it at Taka.

Taka started laughing in earnest this time. She allowed them to hit her to avoid some suspicion, then ripped the dart out of her fur. She felt nothing. They shot another one that hit her in the ass. She stood there gazing at them like they were idiots. "How long is it supposed to take to work?" Jack asked.

"It should have worked already," the woman with red hair rubbed her head.

"Look, let me call my wife," Jack took a phone from his pocket. "We can't keep the dog long term or the girl, but we are foster parents. We already have a twelve year old boy with us. But they can stay with us until you find a more permanent home."

"You said she was blind and deaf?" The social worker asked. "She won't be easy to place. Are you sure there was enough sedative in there?"

"There was enough for a Mastif and she looks like a…well…I'm not sure. Have you ever seen a dog with red eyes before?" one of the women asked.

Taka leaned over her side and removed the offending dart from her ass and spit it back at them.

"Did she just roll her eyes at us?"

"There is something creepy about this dog."

Nina giggled from beneath Taka petting her fur, then she hugged the dog around the waist. They would stay together, if it was the only thing Taka did. Nina was her little girl now.

" _Chichiue?" They sat in the library. She was the size of a seven-year old. Yuki said I'm leftovers._

_He closed his medical journal and sat up. "Leftovers?"_

_"Yeah, she said you don't love Haha-ue and that I was an afterthought after her mother's death. Is that true?"_

_His face wrinkled and she still remembered wishing that his answer would have come faster. "You were my first thought."_

_"But you had me after Rin died."_

_"You know I always wanted another child after the disease ravaged our kind. You are the answer to my hopes Taka. My comfort."_

_"You named me after a bird."_

_"Because I knew how you would soar."_

_"So I'm not leftovers?"_

_"You are everything little one. This," he pointed at his heart, "was empty after she died. Now that I have you it's full again."_

_"Why did you love her? She was human. Tsukimaru said you hated humans."_

_He exhaled heavily. "I found her as a child and she warmed my heart, taught me to feel, taught me to heal."_

_"From what?"_

_"Everything. You'll know it one day Taka. Someone will come into our life that gives you reason, gives you hope. When you find that person, you stay with them. Even if they are human. It was the happiest century and a half of my life."_

_"You mean a lover?"_

_"I mean a friend."_

_"But you loved her."_

_"We were friends before we were lovers."_

_"Will I ever have friends?"_

_"You have your family," he reminded her._

_But what did she have trapped in that castle? Others came and went and she was always trapped._

As they were led into the social workers car the thought crossed her mind, _Nina. My first friend._


	14. Natsuki-Past I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natsuki and Sesshomaru are forced together during a dinner neither one of them wants to be at.

**Natsuki-past**

She paces back and forth in her room holding her son. He is looking more and more like his father as time continues on. His hair is growing in long, white ringlets around his ears and his face wrinkles in all the same ways his father's does, especially when he is angry. She takes a silk green cloth and ties the baby to her back. The first meeting is happening tonight, during dinner. She didn't ask for this. She doesn't want to live with Rin and Sesshomaru. She has no idea where her father got this idea from. She sent for a meeting with her father only to be rebuffed. She attempted banging down his door and was sent away. She screamed into the hallway that she didn't want this and is resigned to her fate.

Of course her bond pinches, it aches and she yearns to be near him and this isn't their way but that isn't what is important. She made a promise. She caused them pain and she knows it. A knock on the door startles her out of her thoughts, nearly making her drop Tsukimaru in the process. She scrambles to catch him under the arms before he flops onto the floor.

"It's time," Gobodo-sama tells her as she is led from her room dressed regally into the hallway. She holds onto the railing for safety, her fingers shake with nerves. "You will give Tsukimaru to one of the servants. He wants to see his son."

"This is ridiculous," Natsuki struts in front of Gobodo-sama, uncaring that she is overstepping.

"Natsuki," the sinister female voice calls her back. "This is my house. Do not make me remind you of your place."

"Fine," the woman huffs as she passes the baby to a female servant. "You will bring him to me when he becomes hungry," she says firmly. She ruffles his hair. "He's in there," she touches her heart. Her chest is fluttering like a spring butterfly.

"You are to sit next to him," Gobodo-sama points to a high backed chair next to her own at the head of the table.

"Are you doing this to spite his human?" the younger female hisses at Gobodo-sama.

"No, I'm doing this to stop a war. If your father is kept even slightly happy by seeing the two of you together, it will keep him from sieging my son's home. He does not have a force to stop an army of his own kind no matter how powerful he is and that will stay between you and I." She opens the doors and the dining hall quiets.

The golden lined table is stocked with raw animals dripping in their own bloods, thick drinks that are only for demons and herbs that are known to loosen the tongue. Everyone stands as Gobodo-sama enters. The quiet murmurs become silent. Sesshomaru glares at his mother as he pulls the seat out for Natsuki to sit. Their fingers connect making sparks fly between them as she sits. Her stomach pitches with a need she hasn't felt in years. She feels a rough piece of parchment enter her hands. She sits down, their hips brush against each other. "This is ridiculous," she says picking up her chopsticks.

"What was that Natsuki?" Kensaku, silver haired sits across from them. Golden eyes are hardened against the two of them. "It's good to see you two together, finally." He fakes a smile that bears his sharp fangs.

"This is still my house Kensaku. You will not speak out of turn again," Gobodo-sama waves her hand in the air signaling the rest of the guests to sit. A goblet of wine brushes past the elder demoness's lips.

"You have allowed this shame to go on long enough. This is not what we agreed to," Kensaku raises his voice. Her father is a monster of a man. He has doted on her, his entire life as the only female heir, but when he was angry, his fists and his words left their marks for centuries.

Gobodo-sama's yoki rises. Natsuki rubs her arms. It's choking the room. She can barely breathe. As usual Sesshomaru both outwardly and inwardly seems unconcerned about his mother's display of power. The other guests cower as a shadow rises over them. "This is my home," her voice booms in the hall. "We will discuss the matter at hand as I see fit." The light returns. "Now you may eat."

The young demoness glances down at the parchment in her hand, **_is this your doing?_** The words accuse her of starting this. She can see him watching her out of the corner of his eye. She touches his finger that is braced on his lap to get his attention. He brings the boar meat to his mouth ignoring her. She passes the paper back into his hand, regretting the action as fireworks dance between them again. Breathing is suddenly difficult again. "May I be excused?" she begs Gobodo-sama.

"You may not," the older female denies her.

"You also did not keep your end of the bargain, Kensaku." Sesshomaru licks the juices from his fingertips. "I was told she was not to approach me for another century and yet she brazenly presented herself to me during battle. Do you care to explain that?"

She shrinks in her chair, embarrassed by her actions.

"This isn't our way," another inu-yokai stands up.

Natsuki knows him as her father's advisor. He has brown hair that is long reaching past his backside, golden eyes as they all do and no stripes on his face. _What is going on?_ Her father didn't care at first, and now all of a sudden he does.

"Sit down Nobu!" a green light wraps around the advisors throat choking him. "Do I need to say it again?" Gobodo-sama laughs malevolently. "I have not had a good fight since I killed Touma's father. If you would like to challenge me, please continue to speak."

A brief smile crosses Sesshomaru's face.

"Kensaku, can you explain your daughter's actions?" Gobodo-sama's voice projects across the hall once again. "Let it be known to all, that Kensaku and I agreed to this pairing as long as it happened a century from now. In return he would cede lands to my Sesshomaru as well as provide aid during battle. She was only three hundred and fifty-two at the time. Fifty years early, not even in heat yet. Her body was taxed by birthing Tsukimaru and she nearly caused the death of my son's lover and herself. It was reckless."

"That was all a plot hatched by your other son," Kensaku barks at her, although it sounds more subdued than before.

"Touma's actions are not my responsibility," Sesshomaru speaks for himself, "and neither are hers. Our relationship-"

"You mean lack of relationship," the advisor ads in quickly.

"I agreed to keep my distance," Natsuki finally finds her voice. Her heart is still pounding. Her cheeks are red. _Why did I listen to Touma?_

"Regardless," Kensaku resumes speaking, ignoring his daughter's words. "You are shaming my daughter and I will not allow it. You used your family's Villa for your human lover without my consent on my lands and did not even offer the same level of respect for your soulmate who is actually pure-blooded. Our way is to spend time in seclusion after a bonding, not to reject the one we bond."

"He's correct," Gobodo-sama concedes the issue. "Would you be happy if they did spend a week in seclusion?"

"I will not!" Sesshomaru bellows at his mother.

"You will show my daughter the respect she deserves or the truce between our lands is finished!" Kensaku's chair flies behind him, slamming into the wall. The clatter silences the dining hall.

"Tell me, if I killed you, would your army still be loyal to you?" Sesshomaru scoffs, half laughing at his own dark joke. "Our way is domination, war, blood-lust. How many of your guards would it take to subdue this Sesshomaru?" His muscles flex, she can feel the bulge against her hip. His emotions are focused, concentrated.

"Is that a threat?" Her father's face is red, boiling and angry.

"Sesshomaru," his mother warns him.

"It is whatever you make of it, Kensaku. My lands are simply that, my lands. I do not need an army to subdue one pathetic coward who cannot approach this Sesshomaru himself!" With each word he speaks, his voice crescendos as he rises from his chair. He looks like a god when he stands. Without the obtrusive black armor, she can see the line of his pecs as it disappears into a green kimono. The attenuated silks he wears drape over a body that has been perfected over centuries. She wants him and it hurts denying her body such a blissful need.

"This is not the time," Gobodo-sama waves them both down. "There are rumors…"

"Not this again," Sesshomaru begrudgingly finds his chair, scooting it closer to his mother to avoid his hips bumping into Natsuki's again.

"It has to be discussed," Gobodo-sama leaves no room for argument. "Satoshi?"

Natsuki turns her head. She knows what's coming. She's heard the rumors. They've made their way all the way to the skies where Gobodo-sama rules.

"We lost six in the last week alone," he says firmly. "I guard the eastern side of the western border. It's a group of twenty monks. They came in number and subdued one of our kind and purified the rest. I barely escaped with my life. We have not been able to find the one they took."

"Hikari?" Gobodo-sama calls to another Inu-yokai.

Natsuki feels sick to her stomach hearing this. They've had their issues in the past with the Monks and Mikos but it's never been like this. Her family home is in that area. She has a little brother who is barely over a century. Her mother is there. Children play freely along the banks of the river and sleep under the stars. _What's happening?_

"We had the same," Hikari is black haired with strange markings around his eyes. "A large group of Monks attacked us while we were hunting sika. We had children with us…" it's not proper for the voice of a Inu-yokai to break, but it does none the less. "My daughter…she was only seventy-five."

"What is happening?" Her soulmate turns to his mother.

"This is why we cannot have this right now. Spend a week with her in seclusion and let us be done with this argument," Gobodo-sama says.

"No," Sesshomaru glares at Natsuki as he stands. "Kensaku, you violated your agreement. You sent two pathetic pawns to subdue this Sesshomaru. I will not be manipulated by your schemes. My lands are safe."

"For now," Kensaku threatens as Sesshomaru storms out of the room. Gobodo-sama runs after him cursing, hefting her heavy layers up to keep them from dragging on the floor.

"Chichiue, please stop this," Natsuki begs him. "We don't want this," she rubs her arms. Being next to him is torment. Her blood is boiling. She needs relief. She closes her eyes forcing her body to calm itself.

"It is not proper and we are losing too many of our own," he rebukes her as if she were still a little girl.

"Why are you doing this? Beyond it's not proper?"

"His barrier is made from reiki, how?"

"Why?"

"Besides this castle that is unreachable by them, we may have no other place to hide until the wrath of the monks and mikos has been satiated."

"His hanyou brother is bound to a Miko. Chichiue, this is madness!"

"Find out how they have erected a barrier from holy energy that does not destroy them!" He raises his voice at her.

"I can't believe you are doing this! I won't help you!" She shrieks at her father. She can stand no more, she rises and leaves the room, avoiding the confrontation between Sesshomaru and his mother as she does.


	15. Sesshomaru-past III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru fights with his mother until he feels Rin calling for him desperately and knows something horrible happened.

**Sesshomaru-past**

_She woke up in the crook of his shoulder. Her slender fingers rest across his chest. Her eyes had dark patches around them still from the expended yoki she had used to help him heal Rin. He allowed himself the pleasure of her lips. One last kiss to satiate them both, to quiet his senses. He pressed his tongue into hers and went to stand. As they both dressed his eyes traced her body. He had been with his fair share of female inu-yokai, but Natsuki's was not like the others. Her hips were still moderately straight and her breasts small. "It was too soon," he said quietly pulling on his grey hikama._

_"What was?" Natsuki's cheeks blushed as she dressed in her golden inner layer._

_"To make our son. Your body has not finished maturing." He approached her and set a hand on her hips. "These should be wider. It was dangerous." The hand ran up her back, giving her goosebumps._

_"I know," she said obviously ashamed of her actions. Her eyes had the same golden hue as his own, only her skin was paler and her body more delicate._

_"You understand why I came? Why we did this?" The sun was just beginning to set outside. The yellow tinge reflected off the window making her seem that much more divine. He needed to return to Rin. She ached and although she agreed to this it hurt her none-the-less. "It cannot happen again. You will keep your distance until after her death. I will return to you then."_

_Her voice broke as she asked, "how long do humans live?"_

_"Sixty, sometimes seventy years. The blink of an eye." It saddened him to admit that Rin would leave him so soon._

_"I can wait," she said firmly pulling on another layer of clothing. This time, she approached him. Her arms traveled up his shoulders and around his neck. He did not resist. She pulled his neck down to embrace his lips, and he allowed it._

_He kissed her tenderly knowing that they would not see each other again. He broke it as he ran his thumb across her bottom lip. "I will come once a week to visit my son. You will ensure that he is fed and give us space."_

_"Okay."_

_"Mother will teach you to control your emotions. You will not send for me unless your life or the life of my son is in danger," the words come out bitterly._

_"What if I go into heat?" She turned away from him._

_"You will suffer. I will not come to you again."_

_That was the last time they had seen each other._

His blood and his loins are boiling. He knew that Kensaku would force him into close proximity with Natsuki. His fingers buzz from just touching her skin. His body tingles with need. He needs a cold bath and to lock the door to his room. He is stopped by a green whip lashing out at him, wrapping around his shoulders and ceasing the movement of his feet. "Stop Sesshomaru!" his mother yells at him. "They are not just rumors. You don't understand."

"They do not concern this Sesshomaru. My home is safe. None can enter that would cause us harm," he fires dokkasu at her slicing through her whip and freeing himself.

"Until Yuki leaves without permission? What about when your lover goes hunting for food? That barrier is what Kensaku is after. He is scared, everyone is."

"Then let the coward find a rock to crawl under."

"It's one week Sesshomaru!" Her claws dig into his skin.

"No it's not just one week. If I make love to her once, I will do it again and again and again and drive the woman I love from my home with jealousy. It is not just one week, you are asking me to sacrifice my relationship, my children because she could not be bothered to wait until Rin died! And you…you act as if this is all a game! That we are all pawns because none have the strength! Mark my words mother, I will overpower you one day," he slams his mother's shoulders against the wall, "I will revel in your death."

"Will you?" She shoves him back with equal intensity sending him over the railing with a half grin on her lips. "You're still just an untrained puppy humping whatever your instinct tells you!"

He circles in the air catching his bearings then soars back up the winding staircase. "You will stay out of my affairs. I have established my land and if I must rid myself of your lover to keep you from entering the confines of my home, I will."

"Sesshomaru!" She follows him to his room.

He attempts to slam the door in her face.

She shoves it open nearly sending him flying again. "You are acting like the spoiled boy that used to sit and pout in this room when he didn't get his way. Do you not understand what is at stake? Your barrier will fall if it is pressed with enough yoki to combat it! You do not have an army. Kensaku does. Give him what he wants!"

"I will not betray her."

"It's not betrayal! Human males often have more than one female. You are being sentimental and ridiculous! Your life and the lives of your children are in danger. Rin will not survive-"

He cuts her off by wrapping his fingers around her neck and slamming her head into the wall. "I let you gloat over me when she was a child and you allowed her death in the underworld. I tolerated you meddling in my affairs and finding Natsuki. Now it is enough. You will not…" he stops short. She is trying not to send for him, but her body knows better. She's been injured. She's going into shock. His mouth dries, his grip on his mother slackens.

"It's Hisato too…"

Together they run for the door outside his room and leap into the air.


	16. Yuki-past I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuki makes a choice that puts everyone in danger.
> 
> For any of my Fire and Ice readers, it was nominated best drama on Feudalconnection. I don't see the vote spot yet.

**Yuki**

Yuki lopes ahead of her mother in the direction of the village. She holds Taiyomaru on her back as she runs through the grass. She tickles his feet while they run. He laughs. Ka-san says that they need to work in the garden. So they ate a quick breakfast and then set off for the village. Yuki complains about being put to work. It's fine that her mother wants her to be part of the community garden, but Yuki certainly doesn't want to. She hopes that if she gets far enough ahead, her mother will give up and let her play by herself.

"Yuki wait!" Harutoga still struggles to keep up with her. "You never carry me anymore."

"You're getting too big Haru. You're almost as tall as me." Yuki refuses to slow her pace. She wants to talk to Shiori. Despite the years they have lived in the village, Shiori and her mother Shizu have kept to themselves. Yuki has seen the bat-hanyou a few times but she wants to see her up-close. Sure, plenty of the children have pure-blooded demon parents, but few of them were the product of a dai-yokai like she is. For the longest time she wanted to find out what the girl was capable of.

"Chichiue said you have to call me Harutoga!" the little boy yells at her.

"No, Ka-san said I have to and she can't hear me. Haru." She sticks her tongue out at him.

"I can hear you," Katsumoto says from behind them.

Yuki rolls her eyes. "Your job is to guard us, not tell me what to do. Shut up," she hisses.

"You are so rude," the pure-blooded demon counters. "I think it shall become my task to teach you proper manners."

"Good luck," Harutoga giggles struggling to keep up. "Slow down Yuki!"

"Harutoga! Yuki!" Rin calls them with a hand shielding her eyes from the bright sun. "We're going to the garden!"

Obediently Harutoga pivots in a long arc and runs after his mother and Hisato.

"Yeah right." Yuki nearly collides into Katsumoto. Her hands whip to her back to catch Taiyomaru from dropping. The child has a death grip on several strands of her hair.

"Turn around little one." Katusmoto kneels down on one knee. "For the last twelve years I think you have exasperated everyone around you. That won't happen with me. Go on."

"I'm thirteen moron." She tries to shoulder past him with her brother laughing at her impudence.

She is stopped by fingers gripping into her knobby shoulder. "I said turn around," his tone is low and cold.

"Yuki!" Rin summons her again.

"Let go of my arm." She raises a menacingly green hand in the air, claws dripping her poison.

Katsumoto flips his hand palm up, flicks his fingers and binds the hand in neon green energy. This causes Taiyomaru to drop. "Go to your mother little one," Katsumoto pats the child with his free hand. Taiyomaru bounds off in his mother's direction. "You will not win this battle. Go to your mother or I'll tie you up and drag you there."

Her other hand comes faster than he anticipates, but not fast enough. She attempts to slash his face only for the whip to extend from the bound hand to her free hand pulling them over her head. "Shall I march you there like a prisoner?" He steps on top of one her toes. "Don't think of using those. I'll catch them too."

"I hate you," she spits in his face.

He wipes the liquid off his nose with the hand that isn't holding her and wipes it on his grass-green haori. "It's a good thing we aren't intended to like each other then. Your decision, I parade you like a prisoner in front of all of your friends to the garden or you walk there

yourself and help your mother nicely? Which one?"

"You're a jerk," her eyes redden as frustrated tears come. "I'm telling Chichiue."

"I highly doubt your Chichiue would care you didn't get your way while defying your Ka-san." He pushes her in the opposite direction. "Now…"

"Fine I'll go myself," the words come out choked with tears.

"Good." He rises off his knees, releasing her hands.

Her shoulders slump as she stomps to the garden, trying to look like she wasn't just utterly defeated. "Stupid Katsumoto," she sniffs back her tears. She flops to her knees next to her mother. Taiyomaru and Harutoga are already obediently following their mother's directions. "Traders." She glares at her brothers.

Rin rests a soft hand on her daughter's shoulder. "You could have just come. Chichiue told you to behave before he left."

"This is behaving." She digs her hands into the ground softening the earth. "What are we growing here?"

"Parsnips for the fall," Rin laughs. "Hisato, go find Shizu. I'd like to talk to her."

"They've been here for years, why haven't you met them yet?" Yuki asks her mother.

"Shizu's husband was killed many years ago. They've preferred their privacy but I think we've given them enough time to adjust, don't you?" Rin tells her daughter. "Shiori could be a friend for you."

"I don't need help making friends." This time the world swirls as her eyes move around in her head.

"Katsumoto," Hisato nods at his cousin. "Keep watch until I return."

"I don't like him," Yuki hisses at her mother. "He's a stupid jerk!"

Rin covers her mouth with her wrist while she laughs at Yuki's outburst. "Personally I like him. I think he's going to be good for you."

"No he's not." She picks up a chunk of dirt. It's so moist she balls it up, squishing the juices out so they drip into the dirt. She slides a rock inside and raises it to pelt Katsumoto in the face. He disappears in a flash and is suddenly behind her shaking her weapon out of her hand. She tries to bite his hand, only for him to knock her over.

The entire time her mother laughs because there is finally someone who can stand up to her daughter's moods.

Yuki glances over her shoulder just as Hisato is returning with Shizu who holds the hand of a little girl that looks no older than herself. Shizu's hair has grey wisps around the sides. Her face is lined with age. Her head bows in respect to Rin. "Rin-sama, I'm Shizu. It's nice to meet you."

Rin rises gracefully from the ground. "It's nice to meet you." She goes to the water bucket against what used to be the Healer's hut and washes her hands. Nobuatsu uses it as storage now. She inclines her head to the older woman. "Harutoga, go get the seeds for the carrots."

"Yes Ka-san." The boy runs over to the buckets that are inside the hut. He comes out with a small bag of seeds and goes to work tilling and planting. Behind him his brother follows quietly.

"Ka-chan, they look like Inuyasha," the little girl gazes up at her mother.

"They're Inuyasha's niece and nephews. Sesshomaru-sama is Inuyasha's brother," Shizu says kindly patting her daughter on the head. "I had heard about you years ago. I thought it was a dream that there would be a place where my daughter would be accepted. Shiori, say hello."

Shiori shyly waves her hand.

"Yuki, come say hello," she encourages her daughter.

Yuki gets off the ground, her knees are covered in dirt. She bows lightly. "I'm Yuki. The boys are Taiyomaru," she points to her littlest brother with a thick black mane on his head, "and Harutoga."

"Do you want to show Shiori how to plant Kabocha?" Rin gives Yuki a small push to the shack.

"Come on," Yuki clasps the other girl's hand. "How old are you anyway?"

"Thirty two or thirty three, I think. I'm not sure. Ka-chan stopped counting a while ago," Shiori follows her into the ram shackled hut.

Yuki digs through the bags of seeds. "Where the hell are they?"

"What do they look like?"

"They're big and goldish brown. Oval shaped," Yuki pushes a box aside and opens another set of barrels going through the seeds. "I hate gardening."

"So do I. We lived by the ocean before." Shiori joins in the searching for the seeds. "But after Chichiue died, we had to find somewhere else to live. The villagers didn't like me. My father, Tsukuyomaru used to protect them, but then…well my Ji-sama killed him and most of the village."

"Why?" Yuki asks, still ignorant of the realities of being what she is. "Didn't your Jisama like you?"

"Your uncle killed Ji-sama," Shiori says with little emotion. "You're younger than me aren't you?"

"I'm thirteen," the little Inu-hanyou says, "finally." The bag makes a clicking sound as she pulls it out of a brown barrel.

"Did you ever live anywhere but here?" Shiori asks her.

"No, well when I was a baby I lived in the village with Ojisan until I was nine months old. Then we moved here." She leaves out the months where she lived in the village by the ocean where she wasn't accepted and the names the villagers called her. She covers her mouth suddenly realizing what Shiori was talking about. "Oh…people were mean to you?"

"Yeah," the bat hanyou sighs. "Ka-chan is getting old. She wanted me to come here so I would have some place to stay after she dies."

The conversation is suddenly making Yuki uncomfortable. She knows her father is old, very old and her Soba-sama even more than that. "What happened to your Chichiue?"

"Ji-sama killed him."

"Why?"

"He threatened to leave the bat-yokai and live permanently with Ka-chan," Shiori answers plainly.

"That's not a reason to kill someone. Chichiue doesn't live with the other inu-yokai and Soba-sama still likes us. Why would your grandfather kill your father?"

"Because Ka-chan is human," Shiori replies with her arms folded.

"Soba-sama loves us," Yuki says truly not comprehending what Shiori is saying.

"For now…"

 _For now? What does that mean?_ Yuki is taken aback by Shiori's words. _For now? Does this mean she likes Tsukimaru better?_ The little one needs a distraction. "Hey, what can you do? Your father was Dai-yokai like mine right? Can you do something?"

"Make barriers." Shiori's palms come together. A light blue sheen covers her and Yuki. "Like this one. I can make it bigger." It expands to the walls of the hut. "Or push you out," her eyes flash and Yuki is knocked out of the barrier landing on her back from the force.

Yuki giggles peeping out the door of the hut.

"Yuki! Hurry up please!" Rin calls to her daughter.

"Can you keep that up?" Yuki grabs Shiori's shoulder. "How long can you keep the barrier?"

"A while," Shiori expands it to cover Yuki again.

"Good," she leans down and gathers dirt from the floor of the hut into another ball, sliding a rock in. After it's packed just right she pokes her head out of the shack and glares at Katsumoto. "Hey dog-breath! Ugly mutt-face!" She chucks the packed mud at him missing. "Dammit."

"Yuki!" Rin yells exasperated.

"Was she trying to hit me?" Katsumoto expression flattens, offended.

"Most likely." Hisato covers his mouth trying to hold in his laughter.

"You're an ugly dog face! You're an ugly dog face!" Yuki taunts Katsumoto until she is sure he knows she is talking about him. She blows raspberries at him. Both girls laugh at their joke.

As for Katsumoto, he streaks over to the hut and demands, "come out of there now."

"Make me mongrel." She folds her arms stubbornly from behind the barrier.

He raises his hand intending on using the whip to drag her from the hut but is repelled.

The girls lose it again, enjoying their joke. "You can't get me. What do you say to that?"

"That eventually you'll get hungry and tired and Shiori will have to go home. Have your fun Yuki." Katsumoto waltzes away, black hair whipping in the wind. "It won't last."

Yuki snarls. "He's such a jerk."

"I think he's cute." Shiori lets the barrier down while his back is turned. "You should take those to your mother."

"She can get them herself." Yuki dashes out of the hut making for the barrier that covers the village and her home.

She finds herself following the contours of the river, with no intention of going back to the house unless she is dragged there. Her juvenile mind is seething. She doesn't understand why Shiori's grandfather killed the little girl's father. Shouldn't he have been happy? Her grandmother is. Then she is curious what her Ji-sama would have thought, but she pushes that idea out of her head. Oji-san is a hanyou and her grandfather also loved a human, why would he be upset if Chichiue bonded a human and had hanyou children? It didn't make sense to her. She sighs dejected, stopping on her favorite rock where the water is the roughest. Occasionally it splashes up soaking her legs. Fish fly through the air, sometimes she catches one before it dips back in the white rapids. It so loud, she doesn't hear footsteps coming from her behind.

"It's a hanyou."

She jolts, whipping around, flexing her claws. It's a monk. He is mid-height, bald and wearing purple and brown clothing. A straw-hat hangs around his shoulders. He is accompanied by a second one. A quick sniff of air lets her know that there are more lurking in the area.

Yuki's eyes widen nervously. This is why she isn't supposed to leave the barrier by herself.

"Do we really have to Yashida. She's just a child?" the second monk asks.

"Yes." A hand covered in a deep blue cloth raises holding sky-blue beads. "Yoki is yoki. No matter the age." The other one held a long knife.

Yuki breaks out in a sweat sensing the rise in holy energy. She knows her Oba-san is powerful, this felt similar to hers and their Monk friend. She wonders for a few seconds if she will turn into a human like the night of the new moon or if she will disappear completely. It smells clean and hot. They're blocking her escape. A vortex of energy is building up over their hands. Yuki for once, is speechless. Not for the first time she wishes that she is still wearing the moonstone Chichiue had left her. She stopped wearing it when she came home. Something binds her feet, making it impossible to move. She yips in protest.

The monks speak words that made the power rise higher. She feels her skin crackling. Her feet won't obey her. When she looks down, there is a white circle of light surrounding them. She tries but can't move. "You can't escape little one," one of them says.

 _Why did I leave the barrier?_ She struggles against the light trying to get free.

"Yuki!"

Relief has never felt so good. It's Hisato. He wastes no time engaging the two monks. He flies head first into one of them, knocking him into the river. The monks screams as he is washed downstream. The next he grabs by the wrist throwing him onto the ground. "Release her." He can feel the holy energy swirling, but it will take more than the power of one monk to stop Hisato.

Yuki breaths heavily but she still can't get loose.

"Mononoke!" the monk that the other one called Yashida yells at him. He shoves a hand into Hisato's middle. It lights angelic blue making Hisato wince in pain.

"Not quite." His fangs grow, his eyes tint red. His snout elongates. His nails pierce the Monk's skin, "but with more power than you have." He bites down on the Monk's shoulder until the hand pales and the circle of light around Yuki's feet disappears. Hisato throws the Monk into the trees, grabs the little girl and flies high into the sky.

"What's wrong with your face?" Yuki holds onto his shoulders with tears in her eyes. "Was he going to purify me? Ahhh!"

More Monks come from the bushes. They are led by a Miko. She raises a sword into the sky, a volley of arrows come flying at Hisato. He dodges, twisting and turning keeping his back to the points. One hits his ankle. He curses feeling the purifying power seep into his body weakening his flight.

"Hisato!" Rin screams from below the trees.

Yuki holds tight to Hisato. "Ka-san!"

"I told her to stay behind the barrier!" Hisato twirls and twists through a second volley. Twelve monks are in the trees below him. The Miko sends her own energy through the katana in her hand. It shines with a bright light that shoots into his back knocking him into the trees. He twists his body again so that he lands skidding on the forest floor on his back. He stands quickly shoving Yuki behind him.

Rin runs out from the bushes alone, her katana is lit green. She throws her whip at the advancing horde. They are surrounded, with bows drawn and pointed arrows charged with purifying power. "Get her out of here Hisato," Rin demands raising her whip in the air threateningly.

"Put it down," the Miko calls.

"GO!" Rin rushes the Miko.

Hisato curses again flying after her. Another volley of arrows comes from the Monks surrounding them. Rin breaks through several shafts before they can hit herself or Yuki. Yuki screams, nothing more than a sack of potatoes being carried by Hisato. He twists and turns flinging Rin behind him. He has more arrows in his semi-transformed body now. Three in his left leg and two in his lower back. "It will take more than that," his jagged snout barks at the Monks, "to purify me."

"Kami what's wrong with your face?" Rin asks before she is felled. A younger Monk releases an arrow that pierces Rin's left shoulder. Yuki's mother shrieks in pain and lands on her knees. "You will not have my daughter," she raises the katana gritting back the pain.

Hisato is panting on the ground trying to catch his breath. Two more arrows pierce his back.

"You're bound to a dog demon, not this one," Yashida comes forward holding up the beads. "And you aren't a full blooded yokai either," he says to Hisato.

"Ka-san?" Yuki runs to her mother. Blood drips down Rin's shoulder from the arrow that has pierced her skin.

"Yuki, they will kill you. Escape," her mother heaves in air as another volley of arrows come flying at them. "Go now!" She shoves her daughter out of the way as she slams her whip into three monks making way for Yuki to dash past them. Her heart races as she makes her way through the falling enemies and into the bushes. Behind her, her mother screams.


	17. Interlude V-Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nina grows up but fate it seems has it's own plans for her.

**Interlude V**

Of course there were other things she didn't think about being in dog form most of the time. Simple things like being dragged to animal doctors and them demanding that she get shots in her ass. At night she used the family computer while everyone slept and learned enough to know that the injections wouldn't hurt her. She allowed them to happen. How else was she to prove she was a 'good dog'?

She was also forced to attend classes with Nina that taught both of them how to communicate with each other. The highlight was when another dog decided to mount her backside. She was desperate to lose her virginity but not to a boxer with ugly speckles on his nose. Taka let loose on the offending humper and slammed him into the ground. _Ewww…_

Nina was enrolled by her social worker into Lighthouse for the Deaf and Blind and eventually moved from the Fireman's house to another and then another and another placement. Her one consistent companion was Taka. She now sported a fancy bright pink harness with the emblem of "Service Dog" on it. She led Nina to and from her classes. She watched intently as Nina was taught first to finger sign and then Tadoma. Tadoma involve Nina placing her fingers delicately on the jaws and lips of the speaker and learning to recognize the movements as words. Her mind was blown when she began to understand that the things she touched had names.

Taka gazed on in awe as her little girl began to see the world through her fingers. She liked coarse things the best. Scarred emblems, pens and pencils, sand, and 3D maps. The child was insatiably curious about the world around her. On the schoolyard, Nina would take her shoes and socks off and run around barefoot with Nina jogging next to her to keep her from running into the slides and swings. Just because they were blind and deaf, didn't mean they couldn't learn to fly. It was fall, Nina stepped on a crunchy orange leaf. She dropped to her knees and made a pile of the foliage in her lap. With each one, she ran her fingers up the spines as if she were caressing a lover. _Leaf,_ she signed to Taka. _Red like his eyes. Purple like his stripes. Hair like snow._

For the first few years Nina refused to try to learn to speak. It wasn't until she was twelve and placed with the Richmond's who lived in a middle-class neighborhood in a house with an open layout that Nina started coming into her own.

The Richmond's were already fostering two other girls, one a teenager named Linda and a little girl named Rosa who was ten. Linda and Rosa were both deaf. The Richmond's had a son who was grown and in college who had also been deaf and despite having a cochlear they had made sure that he learned ASL and educated himself. After Nina had been with them for eight months she tried to say her first word. She pointed at her furry companion and said, "Loooo," and after another year of speech therapy, the white dog that followed her around finally had a name, "Lucy."

Taka did her part to make sure that Nina's needs were cared for. She had always been gifted at embroidery. She began making her designs in the middle of the night when the house was silent and everyone slept. She kept them hidden in a box in the back of the closet in Nina's room where the parents never looked. She opened her own Etsy account and sold her designs. She took care of mailing the items when no one would notice her missing and was rather surprised at how quickly her store took off.

Nina had also learned to type. Taka purchased her a MacBook for her twelfth birthday. It was left as a present at the school front desk. The demoness left it at the administration office of the school and said it was from a kind neighbor who wanted to make sure the girl got the best of everything she needed. Nina lit up and began learning to type at school. Eventually the typing became stories and one night after Nina nearly got herself grounded for refusing to go to bed Taka snuck onto the computer to see what the girl was writing.

_She was a bright little girl, with big brown eyes. Her hair was matted around the side. She wasn't always like this. She lived in a small village that kept fish in a pond so that everyone could take what they needed to eat. There were fields that grew vegetables and trees that grew fruit._

_Then one day, night robbers came and killed her family. She was only seven and so alone. She spent her days foraging in the forest because the villagers didn't want her to eat their food. She lived in a hut on the edge of the woods by herself._

_One day she went into the forest to find food. She was cold and hungry. She found a man on the ground. His hair was white. His stripes were purple. He was hurt and covered in his own blood. He rest on a big fluffy pillow, just like Lucy's fur. His eyes turned red trying to scare her away. She wasn't scared. She brought him food. He didn't want it. He was rude. At first he didn't speak except to tell her to stop bothering him, because he didn't eat human food._

_She thought maybe he was a god in disguise and if she fed him, he would bless her. But then when he said he wouldn't eat anything she brought her, she decided to try fish. But she was beaten for it. She came to him with bruises and he wanted to know who had hurt her. She didn't like talking. He said it was okay and she smiled, because it was finally okay to be herself._

Taka balked. She had been told the story by Taiyomaru. Taiyomaru was the only one of Rin's children that tolerated her. Yuki had never spoken more than a few words to her in centuries and Harutoga never said anything unless he had to. Her father had met Rin in the forest when she was a little girl and tried to help him after he was injured. _She knows him._ She covered her mouth and for the millionth time she stood clutching the house phone wondering whether or not to call her father and tell him where she was and that she had found his human lover. It always ended the same way, she set the phone back down. She couldn't hurt her mother. _Would it really hurt Haha-ue? She doesn't love him…_

Everything seemed to be settling down for Nina until the week after her thirteenth birthday. The family had taken her to her favorite restaurant to eat steak and fries and then spent a long day at the zoo. Nina liked the smells and the petting zoo. The next morning Nina was scheduled to have a cochlear implant, something she was both nervous and excited about. She sat in her bed with her foster mother, signing into the woman's palm, _I can't sleep._

Nina had learned to read lips with her palms, or to take in entire sentences from tactile finger spelling. The girl raised her hands to her foster mother's jawline, "you'll be fine."

 _Does it hurt?_ She spelled into the woman's hand.

"You'll be a bit sore afterwards. But then you'll be able to hear. You know there's no operation to fix your eyes. The doctors said they came from burns. Probably a house fire."

Nina shrugged her shoulders. She couldn't remember ever being able to see. The memories of vision weren't there. But other things were constantly in her dreams. A divine being with silver hair who traveled into the afterlife to find her. Another time he brought her presents, but the dreams…the last one she had an old woman accosted her for not getting married. She ran away and when he found her and held her to keep her warm that night, it made her heart flutter. She woke up in the middle of the night with goosebumps.

"Go to sleep," her foster-mother told her.

Taka jumped onto the bed with the girl and they rest together. At night Nina finger spelled into Lucy's paw. Taka had been with her long enough she knew what the girl was saying. _Do you think he's real? The one I dream about all the time? I dreamt that we were in the forest together. He was warm and then my heart started racing and I wanted to kiss him. I bet no one will ever kiss me. Don't tell anyone._

 _And who would I tell?_ Taka chuckled as the girl continued on.

_I had another. I dreamed of about this scary thing with tentacles attacking him. But he won. He always wins. Whoever he is, he's very powerful. Why don't I ever dream his name? You know what's weird? He has this green thingy that follows him around like a lost puppy dog. I think the green thing is in love with him. I'm going to write the whole story someday. Goodnight Lucy._

Taka nuzzled the girl's nose and licked her cheek.

 _His eyes are like yours,_ Nina told her.

Taka puffed air on the girl's neck and then bolted upright. Something hit her senses, something strong. It was dull a smell she knew well from when her father would seize and throw up blood. Taka changed into her human form, flicking the light on, the bedsheets were covered. "Oh my god," Taka covered her mouth.

She grabbed a towel and pushed it against Nina's nose. Blood gushed from the tiny button. Nina choked on it crying. The demoness changed back to her dog form and stood by the door barking. She yipped over and over until Mrs. Richmond came running. "What is it Lucy?" The dog was rewarded with a quick pat on her head. "Oh my god!" She screamed running over to Nina. She pressed the cloth tighter against the child's nose. "Tyler! Tyler!" she yelled.

The father came running, half dressed in just his pajama bottoms. "I'll call an ambulance"

Nina's skin was pasty white, her head lolled and then rolled into the back of her head. _How did I miss it?_ Taka could do nothing but sit and watch. If she changed she would scare the daylights out of them. The blood wasn't stopping, the entire top of the bed was soaked. Nina was unconscious and her foster parents terrified.

_"Chichiue how can you tell if someone is sick?" She once asked him._

_"The smell is in their blood. It smells sick, but there are different kinds. Leukemia smells like propyl and mistletoe but each strain has its own unique smell." He picked up two vials of blood and asked, "which one do you think has leukemia."_

_She brought them both to her nose and pointed to one that had more of a bitter smell._

_"Good," congratulated her._

_No…no…no…_ She ran circles around their feet.


	18. Rin-Past III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle against the monks rages. Will Rin escape with her life?

Rin-past

She breaths heavily. Her shoulder stings. The shaft of the arrow went completely through her left scapula. The feathered end of the arrow sticks out of her front, marring her usually smooth movements.

She's managed to stop the next volley by taking the monks out by their feet with the bright green whip that comes from her katana. The Miko is rushing her with a hand extended. The reiki is rising against the raised fingers and Rin can't help but wonder, what will she do when the power of her katana is sealed. There are too many of them for her to take in hand to hand combat. Hisato is running on all fours like a wild animal, it's as if his mind has become as rogue as his body has. He's bit into the neck of one of the monks, throwing his windpipe in the grass, bathing in the blood of his enemies.

The rabid dog-demon grabs her around the waist and attempts to lift her in the air but the purifying power in the arrows is holding him back. The priestess's katana clashes into Hisato's shoulder. Rin kicks free and engages. She raises her sword that is immediately vanquished by the reiki. Rin throws it aside and trips the Miko, sweeping her feet out from beneath her. She lands on top of the Miko and painfully, brings the woman to stand, despite the burn in her shoulder, she holds her neck firmly. "Back off, or I'll break her neck," she threatens the advancing monks.

"You are a defiler," one of the monks hums as he walks forward. "Let her go."

The Miko grasps the arrow in Rin's shoulder, yanking it down.

Rin cries in pain as her body is jarred by the pressure, but refuses to let go. "She will die." Black specks form in her vision. She shakes her her head to clear her vision. Loss of consciousness will not help now.

"Can you kill one of your own kind?" The Miko taunts her.

"We need to leave Rin-sama," Hisato stands back to back with Rin, as close as the arrows poking out of his back allow.

"Yuki?" She digs her nails into the chin of the Miko.

"Her scent is distant. She's safe," Hisato says coughing.

"Are you going to make it?"

"I can't fly. We need to break their ranks," Hisato whispers.

"Pathetic," the Miko laughs.

Rin twists the Miko's neck until the first bone pops making the dark haired Miko's eyes bulge as she gasps for air. "Let us go, or I'll kill this one."

"You're outnumbered, give us the yokai, let us purify your connection to the dog-demon and you will live," the head monk tells her.

"Rin-sama," Hisato coughs up blood. "Go."

"No," she shakes her head, "you are my friend Hisato. I am not leaving you behind." She snaps another bone. "One more and you are dead."

"Let them go," the Miko shakes in pain, part of her body is paralyzed now unable to move. Tears flee her eyes.

The bows drop as the head monk raises his hand. "You are a tough one."

"If you come back to these lands," Rin throws the half limp Miko onto the ground. "You will die."

"Now!" The head monk yells.

The Monks raise their arrows again.

"Run!" Rin grabs Hisato's shoulder, bearing his weight she attempts to flee to the tree line where the bark will take the majority of the barrage against them.

"Let me go!" Hisato pushes her away turning to face the oncoming monks.

"Hisato no!" She screams as he throws her like a ball into the forest, she lands on her side, the pain from her shoulder blackens her world. "Hisato!" She stares in terror as a dozen arrows come flying at her guard, her confidant, her friend.


	19. Interlude VI-Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With few options left, Taka must call for help in treating Nina.

**Interlude VI**

**Before**

Tyler and Hannah Richmond sat with the doctor in the office across the hall from Nina's room. She'd been hospitalized in the hematology/oncology ward with other children who were as sick as she was. They were able to stop the bleeding with platelets and plasma after she lost 800cc's. Taka refused to leave her side. She curled against the girl as the child ran her fingers through her white fur. For the millionth time since she began this journey, Taka stared at the phone. Her father would know how to treat the cancer but that wasn't what concerned her. On the other side of the door she could hear the foster-parents arguing.

The doctors called off her cochlear implant, the risk of hemorrhaging was now too high. She would remain deaf and blind and if it happened that she went into a permanent remission it was possible they could try again to get her a cochlear implant.

"We can't keep her," Tyler sounded insistent.

"That's not fair. She's been with us for a year," Hannah cried against her husband's chest. Taka wondered what love felt like, connection. She was hidden away from everyone and everything for three and a half centuries. She loved the little girl that clutched her fur and she knew that Nina loved her. "We would have kept her until she was eighteen, you know that!"

"What are we supposed to do? We can't afford her treatments!" his voice rose in crescendo.

For once Taka was grateful for Nina's deafness.

"Medicaid will pay for the majority of it and we can start a fund, ask for donations for her. Tyler, she just started talking. She was shipped from home to home for seven years."

"It's hundreds of thousands of dollars!" Tyler bellowed back at his wife.

Taka shook her head. This wasn't right and even she knew it. Her father could cure her in a few hours. "Mr. and Mrs. Richmond?" The doctor returned to his office.

"The good news is that Medicaid will cover some of her treatments. If we are going to act, we need to act now. Her white blood cell counts are extremely high so are the number of blasts. We can start her on chemo-therapy now but there isn't time to wait for her to have another placement. You obviously care about Nina."

"We aren't abandoning her Tyler," Hannah stood her ground.

"I can't do this Hannah," he finally broke down. "I can't watch her suffer. She isn't even ours."

"Then leave," Hannah said in tears. "Just leave. I'll help her myself."

For a while they discussed the various options for treatment and the likelihood that Nina would survive. Hannah called her sister to watch the other two children at home and then came into the room to speak to Nina. She sat down by her bedside. The girl stirred in her sleep. She was strapped to the bed with an IV in either arm. Her face was pained as she picked up Nina's hand waiting for the girl to be wake up completely. _The tests came back._ She finger spelled into Nina's hand. _You have a rare form of leukemia. It's very advanced. They're going to start chemo while you're in the hospital and afterwards, we'll try some other therapies to see what works the best._

 _What about my cochlear?_ Nina was trembling. Her shoulders shook. Her hands waited for the answer.

_Not now. I'm sorry. It's too dangerous. You might bleed out and it's brain surgery. I'm sorry._

Together they cried. Taka whined by Nina's face licking her tears. The little girl covered her face with her hands while Taka licked the tips of her fingers.

 _Am I going to die?_ Nina asked her foster mother.

 _We don't know._ The mother spelled back. She pat Nina's back while she cried, eventually falling asleep in a chair next to Nina's bed.

In the dead of night, Taka felt something against her paw. It was Nina's hand, _I hate being sick. I hate being deaf. No one likes me. Who is ever going to love me like this?_

 _If you only knew little one,_ she nuzzled the girl's nose and licked another tear. Nina couldn't hear her thoughts, but to Taka, they'd been sharing these private conversations for years.

_He has a special sword that brings people back to life. We went flying in the air together. I dreamt I kissed him and his lips were so soft. Why can't dreams be real? I don't want to die. He could bring me back. Why can't he be real?_

_I'm not going to let you die,_ Taka panted against the girl. They allowed her to stay because she was a therapy dog and after a few tests they discovered she was hypoallergenic. Taka wasn't surprised, demons don't get sick, they don't have allergies, the only thing that can fell them is the disease that made her father so ill. That alone made her wonder how her father's tremors were. Was he still alive? Would she even know if he passed away?

As Nina fell asleep and the nurses checked her for the last time that night, Taka got off the bed and went to the hospital phone. She shifted to her human form as quietly as she could pulling a phone card out from her back pocket. She had a cellphone but she couldn't risk using it. She lifted the receiver and dialed her father's number. It rang twice before she heard, "Rinata-sama des," he didn't say more.

She couldn't speak. His voice sounded the same as it did eight years before and all of a sudden she missed her father and began to cry. Her hand covered her mouth, trying to stifle her cries.

"Is someone there?" His English was so perfect she hated it. It was tinged in a British accent he picked up from his time in the colonies in the 1800's.

She couldn't speak. She didn't know who she was supposed to protect. Was it true that her mother loved him? Taka knew that he'd been intimate with other female demons in a desperate attempt to create more of their kind. Her mother never said anything. She hung the phone up with tears falling down her own cheeks. She changed back into her dog form and curled against the little girl she wasn't able to abandon. _I won't let you die, I can't hurt Haha-ue either. What do I do?_

The chemo made her so sick she puked for days after receiving it. Taka spent those days never leaving her side. The Richmond's had to convince her to eat and she complied if only to keep them from suspecting she was more than the friendly white dog she was. After a week in the hospital Nina was released and Tyler was there waiting with their other two foster children. He apologized for being a total ass and promised to support Hannah and Nina. Together they set up a gofundme account to help cover the cost of her treatment.

When night fell, Taka took out her own hidden computer and put all the money she made from her embroidering blankets into their GoFundMe page. It wasn't much. Over time she had managed to make about $32,000 dollars. She put all of it in but a thousand so she could keep up her hidden business. She kept her materials hidden in their basement and used a sewing machine that was abandoned. Her father always said, people believe what they want. She was impressed she had never been caught in her human form.

They tried the various treatments usually used for Acute promyelocytic leukemia starting with ATRA. Nina suffered severe burns and scarring along her skin. They waited several weeks with bated breath for the results of new blood draws and were disappointed to be told that it did not have the intended effect. Her chemo treatment continued. Eventually she had a Porto Cath placed in her chest when her veins became too sclerosed from constant IVs to remain functional. Taka sat by her side as the procedure was conducted and nudged her cheeks and face as she recovered.

One night at the hospital when Nina was admitted for an infection Taka was distracted by a scent that she hadn't expected wafting off the girl in waves. _What are you dreaming about?_ The dog rose onto all fours and leapt onto the bed, sniffing the girl's backside. If a dog could laugh, Taka was rolling. Nina was thoroughly aroused and moaning her sleep. She gripped the sheets in front of her and if Taka understood the EKG leads correctly, her heart-rate was slightly elevated. By the standards of the time, a fourteen year-old having sex would be considered bad form, but considering she was just dreaming about it? But then the thought hit Taka about _who_ Nina was most likely having sex with. Barely a night went by since she became ill that new "memories" didn't surface and of course that thought made Taka wonder what the hell her father was doing to Nina in her sleep that was making her moan so loud and grip the bedsheets like she was holding on for her life. Even her own mother didn't make that much noise in bed.

 _I need to find someone to pop my cherry,_ Taka mused quietly to herself while finding a comfortable spot on the bed to lay down again. It was exhausting being in dog form most of the time. She had just found the perfect position when Nina bolted upright holding the front of her gown. She grabbed Taka's paw and started signing frantically. _I just lost my virginity…he…oh my god! We were in a hot springs! And he was naked and oh my god! His body, I would die if I saw ever someone that built. If I could see I would have something to compare him too. Are all guys this hot? Tyler's stomach is flat and fluffy, not bumpy like his. He's like…I don't know…perfect. We were talking, I think I was mad at him about something but his fingers. Do you know what he can do with his fingers?_

 _Do I want to know what my father was doing with his fingers?_ If only she could talk and not freak the girl out.

_He put them in me and rubbed my clit!_

Taka had to bite her own cheek or she would start rolling in laughter.

_But that's not it. Two days later we did it again, he kissed me down the front of my chest, between my breasts. My boobs were bigger in my dream. Do you think I'll get bigger boobs before I die?_

Taka couldn't help it this time, this time she did let the laughter roll off her. _I'm still waiting for mine to get bigger,_ she thought.

_Anyway he started licking my va—_

_Okay,_ that Taka just couldn't listen to. _He licks her vagina?_ Taka sat up and started licking the sweat of Nina's face. _I will listen to whatever you tell me, except my father licking your vagina. That I draw the line…I don't even want to think of him having sex with Haha-ue! When are you going to find out that you weren't his only one?_

She resolved that she needed to try harder to find someone to have sex with. Her father had sex with many demonesses before they understood there was no way for him to get them pregnant, she just needed to find someone. But all thoughts failed as Nina's treatments continued to only offer respite and not full remission. She was on the National Donor registry for bone marrow, but APL needed an allogenic donor. She had no family anyone knew of and Taka didn't know if she could even find the girl's parents in Japan. For the billionth time as Nina sat puking over a toilet bowl crying from the pain of the treatment, looking like nothing but skin and bones Taka wanted to call her father. She was so scared she was going to do something wrong and hurt someone she loved but after the arsenic failed and all that resulted was more weight loss, vomiting and swelling, she couldn't resist any longer. Nina was fifteen she deserved more than this.

When evening fell and everyone went to sleep, Taka took out her cellphone and made the call. The phone rang and went to voicemail, "this is Yuki leave me a message."

"Yuki, it's Taka…I know we aren't close but I need help. It's an emergency, please? I can't call Chichiue, please call me back?" She hung up the phone and started to cry. Sitting down on the bed next to her little girl she stroked the girl's head and whispered, "I should have called him before it came to this."

Nina had only months left. All options had failed.


	20. Mayumi-present II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mayumi struggles to accept a life without her inukag parents

**Mayumi-present**

_What's the fun of having special abilities if you aren't allowed to use them?_ Mayumi kicks her sneakers back and forth while leaning forward on the bench. She doesn't have the heightened hearing that her Uncle and father have. Even Sota and Izayoi hear better than she does. She doesn't have the spiritual power that Taisho has, it's never manifested itself in her although there were times she wished it did. Especially as Ojisama comes stalking into the school. His skin is paler today, his hands in his pockets. She knows he does that to hide his claws and his shaking hands. His face is more creased than usual. He is slighter than the Uncle she left in the past and in her mind, she prefers the demon he was five hundred years before.

He spares her no glance as he enters the office. He doesn't even acknowledge her presence as he tells the secretary he is there to pick her up. The Headmaster immediately leaves his office that is lined in see through windows and brings her Uncle back and Mayumi wishes she could hear what they are saying. The headmaster takes out a thick file folder. She cringes. She had hoped to keep that file from him. "You're back?" says Kaito, a boy in her class. He's taller than her with high cheekbones and lips that she has dreamt about kissing. "Are you trying to set a record?"

She laughs, flushing red at his comment. "Having fun. What are you in for?" her tone is flirtatious and inviting.

He raises his eyebrows and leans in so close she can smell the chocolate on his lips, "stealing test answers. Tell me Higurashi, do you have plans tonight?"

"My uncle is in there right now," she points through the window as the Headmaster takes out a large file, stacked full of her infractions. Sesshomaru lowers his head into his hands and even she can see his left leg struggling to remain still. "I'll be lucky if he doesn't ground me until I'm a hundred years old." _Or kill me,_ she shudders knowing what he was capable of 500 years before. She once saw him fight with her father when a horde of bear demons attacked the village. Ojisama flew between them, one and the next, silver hair flying, and when he came back his claws dripped in their blood and his eyes were so icy, she nearly ran from him.

Kaito is a bad boy which is part of what makes him so attractive. "Fuck him," he nods at her Uncle. "He looks like an albino."

Mayumi purses her lips begging in her head for Kaito to stop talking as one of her Uncle's eyes rolls back at them.

"Meet me at the mall tonight. We'll have loads of fun." Kaito is a bad boy who's been kicked out of almost every school he's been in since he was a boy. Rumor has it, his arrest record is so long it takes days to get through it, he's hot.

The door swings opens as her Uncle bows to the Headmaster. _He never used to bow to others._ "Mayumi," the way he says her name makes her flinch.

"I didn't do it," she lies, her first mistake.

Sesshomaru leans over Mayumi's shoulder his gaze fixed on Kaito, "if you so much as look at my niece again…go on look behind you." His claws dig into the metal of Kaito's chair, "the chair will be in better shape than you will be. Do you understand?"

Kaito nods, lips cracked and dry as he stands and goes to the headmaster's office.

Sesshomaru takes her by the hand as if she is a child again and forcefully leads her from the school. "I have patients and a practice to run. I do not have time for teenage girls having tantrums that are obviously lying through their teeth. I can smell the chemicals on your hands." He yanks her across the street with more force than necessary.

"You're a coward," she lets her blades loose on the hand holding her.

He laughs lifting up the unmarked flesh. Her yoki is no match for his. He pulls her into an alley and looms over her, crossing his arms and demands, "Do you wish to tell me why you have chosen to behave like this?"

"Like you care," she attempts to elbow passed him only to get pushed against the wall again. She looks anywhere but his face, pushing back embarrassed tears. It's more fun to break the rules when you don't get caught.

"If I didn't care, I would have left you with your grandmother for the next ten years." He pulls her back onto the busy sidewalk and shakes out one of his legs.

"Why did I have to go with you if you're just going to die anyway!" she screams at him. "You're a coward! You're weak! The Ojisama I knew would never act like you, love sick pathetic jerk!"

Tears stop her from seeing the oncoming traffic. Getting hit by a car was not what she had in mind until she feels arms around her waist and is cradled in the warmth of his chest. But it's too late. The car rams Sesshomaru in the back. He's shaking, she can feel the trunk of his body shivering and hear the rasping of his breath. The car bunches around his side.

He shakes it off wincing at the pain. She knows she's in even more trouble as he apologizes and pacifies the driver of the car and ensures them that he is fine. He refuses to stay for medical care and leads her to his office. "You can work on the files today."

"You just got hit by a car." She wipes the tears that are finally falling from her eyes. She can't tell if he's been injured.

"Because you acted like a spoiled brat and ran in front of it. If you are trying to kill yourself at least do me a favor and do it correctly. Do not expect me to save you from your own stupidity." He pushes her through the door of his office, making polite small talk to the patient who is with her family. She's young and the woman with her definitely doesn't look Japanese. "Why does she have a dog in your office? Ow!" Mayumi rubs the back of her head.

"Manners," Sesshomaru reminds her tersely.

"Like you had any 500 years ago. To-san should have cut off both of your arms," she groans when she is dragged into his office by the arm like she is a little girl.

"When you are in this office, you will respect me."

"Or what? You'll spank me?"

He raises his claws in the air and his whip forms, flying in circles around the room and cracks next to her ear so loud it makes her flinch and she can feel the sting of its energy. "It worked on Yuki, sadly you don't have enough yoki to heal yourself if I chose to."

"That's child abuse."

"Who will you call Mayumi? What authorities will fly to my home in the sky and rescue you? I control the demon foster care system, I control the demon legal system, who would rescue you?"

"I hate you," she turns away from him.

"I'm flattered. I have a procedure now." He kicks the door open with his heel and hands her off to her sister. "Izayoi, your sister will arrange the files in order by year. When she is done, you will begin to load the information onto the computer system. Now." He leaves through the door to the procedure room where his colleagues wait for him.

Mayumi tries to cover her face as Izayoi pulls her into the backroom where the files line the walls like monoliths. "What were you thinking? If you use your blades and someone finds out about us!"

"It was five hundred years ago Izayoi! You're a myth now! I'm not! I look human, why can't I live in this world?"

"Because…it could happen again. What do you think they would do if they knew Ojisama was a demon, not a human? What about me? It would be a freak show. Why can't you think about someone else besides yourself?"

"That's what he did?" Mayumi scoffs, "I hate it here. I want to go home."

"We don't have a home anymore," Izayoi leans against one of the file cabinets. "The monks saw to that."

"Yeah, well I still look human and I don't care. I could be a super hero."

"Or a lab rat," the older sister shoots back. "Stop pushing him."

"Why? Will he die faster?" She says sarcastically, then stops seeing the look on her sister's face. Izayoi's face falls and she cries into her hands. "How long?"

"Soon…he won't say how long. He's already made arrangements with Natsuki and his children to care for us. He doesn't have that long anymore."


	21. Interlude VII-Present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taka tells Yuki what she did.

**Interlude VII-Present**

"You did what!?" Yuki screams into the phone at Taka.

The younger demoness holds the phone away from her ear. She sits in the basement during the middle of the night, talking to her older half-sister. "Look what was I supposed to do? I know it was wrong, but Tsukimaru didn't give me a chance to think!"

"Since when do you think about anyone but yourself?"

"I don't deserve that and you know it! You know damn well Chichiue and Haha-ue kept me locked in that castle for three and a half centuries telling me what to think and believe and you never even gave me the time of day!"

"Because you didn't deserve it, you conniving, manipulative-"

"Yuki!" She slams the phone against a nearby table cracking the screen, "I…help me save her, please?"

"You took someone who you think has the soul of my dead mother and travelled to the United States, does it even bother you how much pain you caused Chichiue?" Yuki rebukes her over the phone.

"Yes," Taka says quickly, "look…I messed up okay. I messed up badly. I'm not making excuses but she needs Chichiue. She's sick."

"So take her to a doctor-"

"It's APL, leukemia. They tried all the treatments, she fell into the ten percent that can't be treated."

"You can't play with his heart like this Taka," there is shuffling on the other end of the phone. "You don't even know for sure it's her."

"How is he?" Taka inquires both of her father and of Katsumoto.

"Chichiue's tremors are worse. He can barely get through a few hours without needing an injection. I'm coming Katsumoto," she calls to her lover.

"Yuki, please. She has Leukemia. They can't heal it. Would you know if it was your mother?"

"I don't know," Yuki is suddenly subdued. "I need to go. Katsumoto needs me."

"Yuki, I'm begging you please. Get me an appointment in his office as soon as you can."

"You know it doesn't work like that. He has to do all those preliminary tests to make sure the patient is well enough to survive the treatment."

"I know a CBC and a blast count and then they have to not have been sick or had fevers before. I know, Yuki…I've never lied to you. You have to know I'm desperate if I called you. I know how you feel about me. How I was conceived," Taka whispers and wiped her eyes, "I sent you a picture."

"Kami," Yuki whispers, "she looks just like Ka-san. This doesn't prove anything," she says stubbornly.

"She has her memories."

"Stop it Taka."

"He found her in the forest when she was eight."

"She found him and everyone knows that."

"They fell in love when she was sixteen but he was stubborn about it until she was seventeen. Right after she faced some snake demons."

"Everyone talks about that story!"

"Ugh!" Taka screams into the phone. "Okay…you want something no one else would know? Fine…you got lost after Harutoga was born. You were mad that he was a boy and you ran away from home. You fell into the river and hit your head. You woke up in a village alone and Inuyasha came to get you, because Chichiue insisted you would have gone up river. He wouldn't believe that you would have gotten hurt. The village wouldn't give you up until Chichiue came because they knew who you belonged to and Chichiue refused to say his brother found you and not him!"

"How do you know that? Ka-san didn't know that."

"Inuyasha told his wife who told your mother, Yuki. She has her memories. Chichiue was too proud to admit that Inuyasha found you and not him. It's her! Please Aniue," Taka uses the epitaph of 'big sister' in the hopes it will convince Yuki, "make up a story. Use the American Make a Wish Foundation. If I don't get her there in the next six weeks she'll be dead. I'll pay for her ticket…I'll…"

"Shut-up Taka," Yuki's voice changes, "look I'll call Taiyomaru and Harutoga and have them claim to be part of this Make a Wish Foundation thing. We'll pool the money to bring you here. Don't say anything to Chichiue. He'll know if it's her. I have to go."

"Bye," she exhales and falls to the floor on her knees. _How do I keep her alive until she sees Chichiue?_ She closes her eyes thinking then runs up the stairs and takes a cup from the kitchen. She slits her wrist and allows her blood to drip down the side of the glass. It's risky and no the complete treatment, but if it gives Nina the strength to live, that is all that matters.


	22. Sesshomaru-Present III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru finally meets Nina, but things don't go as planned.

**Sesshomaru-present**

The procedure is simple. It's the after effects that are dangerous. His blood has become too degraded from transfusions from Taiyomaru and Tsukimaru to use any longer that he now takes donations from his pure-blooded son. The results are the same. The majority of Leukemic cells are overwhelmed by the demonic cells and after a period of intense fever and muscle pain the patient is cured. The donors from the specific family of course want to stay anonymous and an agreement is in place with his colleagues that protects him from them finding the vast components that make the blood so different.

He peruses the checklist as he sits on the white stretcher in the procedure room with one leg cocked. He leans over the computer table, no fever, low blood pressure which is expected because of the effect leukemia has on platelet function, no recent illnesses. It's the name that catches his eye. "Nina Hawthorne?" he questions his colleagues.

There are two other doctors in his office that assist during procedures. One is an attending the other is a resident. Yoshi is an upstart in his mid-twenties and Haruto Yamamoto has worked with him for ten years. "We're treating Americans now?" Most of their patients come from Japan and China and other Asian countries and very rarely does he approve cases farther than that because he needs to monitor them for at least six months afterwards.

Haruto glances up. "She was a charity case. She's from San Francisco. Her leukemia is terminal, she's blind and deaf. Besides publishing a book, her one wish is to be cured. The American Make a Wish foundation sent her here. You approved her case yourself? You don't remember? Her foster parents contacted you."

Things are getting foggy. He shakes his head. As he does, he realizes that it's not just under his own power that his head is shaking, the rest of his body is going into a series of tremors. His legs start first, then his fingers until he can no longer control the mouse and it bounces around the screen.

"Are you alright Rinata-sama?" Yoshi asks him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He tries to speak but can't. The seizure has traveled to the nerves in his mouth making his teeth chatter. He tests his feet, they still work. He leaves the room and quickly alights back to his office. He makes for his desk, the gaudy big brown thing he bought for extra drawers that lock. His fingers fumble on the key, covered in sweat, struggling to turn the lock. In moments, he knows he will be on the ground seizing at the mercy of whoever finds him.

"I'll get them." Mayumi drops the files in her hands and dashes to his aid. She pulls open the drawer and removes the vial. Even she knows in emergencies how to administer the injections that maintain his health. Worry fills her eyes as she measures the liquid.

He raises two fingers, hoping she understands that it's bad this time and he needs a double dose.

"Rinata-sama?" Yoshi followed him and sees Mayumi with the needle.

The girl is mute as she finishes measuring it, guiltily holding up a needle near her uncle's neck as he leans over his desk unable to speak.

"What is this?" He tries to take the needle from Mayumi but the child backs away and Sesshomaru begs her mentally not to unleash her blades.

Izayoi runs in behind Yoshi. "He's epileptic," something else he trained his older niece to say. She grabs the needle from Mayumi's trembling fingers. "Can you sit down?"

It's spreading to his trunk, his back aches from the strength it takes to stop his muscles from convulsing. He grips the thick edges to steady himself. He shakes his head, if he moves the tremors will overtake him.

"I need a vein," Izayoi pulls the cuffs of his black pants up around the ankles. She curses the state of his veins. In this position, it won't be an easy stick.

He can't speak. His lips are paralyzed. _The neck._ He thinks desperately. _Just go for the neck._

"Can you get a vein in the neck?" Izayoi begs Yoshi, her fingers are too soaked in sweat to do it herself.

Haruto comes in with his own look of concern. He's an older man with scruffy salt and pepper hair. Sesshomaru groans fighting back the tremors.

"Should I call Tsukimaru?" Mayumi asks trying to get around the people surrounding him.

"Not if this works," Izayoi calls her sister off.

"What's wrong Rinata-sama?" Haruto touches his hand.

"He's epileptic," Yoshi supplies.

"This doesn't look like seizure medicine," Haruto takes the needle from Izayoi.

"Just get it in one of his veins before he collapses!" Mayumi yells at them. Sesshomaru is grateful for her zest.

He is a slave to his body, the dastardly thing that wants to give out on him. He coughs up mucous, the first sign that soon he'll be bed-ridden and immobile like his son in law.

Haruto is much more experienced than his niece at finding veins. He pulls back the silver hair by Sesshomaru's ear, the strands slide along the pointed tip. Sesshomaru gags on the building mucous. His stomach roils, he knows this feeling. If it's not stopped he'll be hemorrhaging soon. Haruto pushes the needle into the vein in his neck. Relief comes quickly as the burning liquid enters his blood stream. He breaths easier, visibly catching his breath. He rubs his throat and spits out the rest of the yellow goo that accumulated in his throat choking as he does. He wipes his mouth on a sleeve and goes to the sink washing his hands and mouth.

"How long has he been sick?" Haruto asks the girls.

"A long time," Sesshomaru wipes his mouth and leaves the room. The procedure takes precedence. He doesn't have time for this.

"Are you sure you're up for this?" Haruto asks him as they enter the hallway, "you look paler than usual."

"Can the girl communicate?" Sesshomaru asks avoiding a reality he isn't ready for.

"She uses a computer program, she types and it speaks for her," Yoshi is following behind them like a lost puppy.

"How does she hear what we say? Fifteen is old enough to give consent and refuse," he stops before they exit the door to the waiting area. Izayoi squeezes past them to get to her desk at the front.

"She uses Tadoma," Yoshi explains. "It's really fascinating. I would recommend though that you speak to her. Your English is better than ours. We speak with an accent, she was having a hard time understanding the nurses. Her foster mother had to interpret for her."

"Okay," he says as he finally pushes the door to the waiting room open. He adjusts his stethoscope and takes a deep breath. His body can't handle much more of this. His nervous system is still on fire. He opens the door and nearly loses his lunch as he sees the girl sitting next to an obviously American, white, brown haired, blue eyed foster mother and then a scent that he hasn't smelled in three and a half centuries blasts into his senses. _Morning dew…_ his breath catches, the way it used to when he would land at the entrance of their home and she would be waiting for him. He came laden with gifts for his children, but she was his first stop, and then he would drink in the taste of her lips, his claws ran through her hair and after the debacle with Touma he would take her back to their bedroom after greeting his children and he would make love to her. _I would know your soul. Rin…_

The teenager has short black hair that is tied into a pony tail. Her eyes are colorless, almost completely white. Scars surround her eyes. Her cheek bones are high, her face almond shaped. He scrubs his eyes, unable to breathe, wondering if hallucinating is a new symptom. _Rin…_ Then by her feet, laying on the floor, he sees a white dog with thick fur. The eyes catch him as odd, he knows exactly who is sitting by her feet. He would know those red eyes and that nose anywhere. He closes the distance not sure who he is happier to see, his long lost lover or his daughter who has been missing for so long. The dog's face perks up. It gulps and licks its' lips radiating fear. He kneels down lifting her face.

"Please don't pet her, she's a service dog," the foster mother asks.

 _You are in so much trouble little one,_ he knows the dog understands him. She licks her lips and nods her head as he strokes her head. The dog nuzzles his hand. "Forgive me," he says in English, forcing the cramping in his stomach to stop as he looks at the girl in the seat. She looks every bit of what Rin did at fifteen, except the hair and the scarring around her eyes. "What happened to her eyes?" He's seen it before in rural patients when he was doing his residency.

"We don't know," the woman stands up and offers her hand. "She was like this when she came to us."

His hands are clammy as he shakes hers. He take out his pocket light and flashes it around the eyes, holding her head still. His fingers feel friction, electricity touching her. He licks his lips, pushing back the feeling. "She's of Japanese descent?"

"She doesn't have much of a history. She was found alone when she was they think around five years old in a firehouse in San Francisco. The dog was with her. She went through a few homes. You can imagine the kind of care a child like this takes. She's been with us since she was twelve. But when she was thirteen…" she covers her mouth obviously overcome with emotions. "I'm Hannah, you speak English very well."

He chuckles to himself, laughing at his own joke. _That's because I lived there for nearly a century…_ "I've had a lot of practice. She will need to come back alone." He wants to speak to her without an audience. Does she know him? He flips through the chart. "Two years ago she suffered her first hemorrhage? APL typically is resistant to treatment and you've been unable to locate a bone marrow donor for her? ATRA and Arsenic both failed?"

"Yes," the brown haired woman answers.

 _You should have brought her to me sooner!_ He seethes at the dog cowering by the girl's feet. "She can come back now. You'll need to wait out here," he dismisses her casually.

"I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that," Hannah interjects quickly.

"The dog may come." He stares at the white haired pup who looks like she is on the verge of wetting herself.

"Her name is Lucy," Hannah says.

"Well then Lucy," he glares at her, "bring Nina into the procedure room." He touches the blind girl's shoulder. She takes his hand while holding the harness to the dog.

Hannah raises Nina's hands to her mouth and jaw, "they're going to take you back now. Do you want me to come?"

Nina shrugs her shoulders. She picks up her computer bag and follows them, one hand grips Sesshomaru's wrist as they walk together into the procedure room. It has one bed and multiple IV's ready on a tray table. They'll need to keep her hydrated, although he can already tell that the veins in her legs and arms are shot.

He leads her to the bed and helps her sit down. He notices a protrusion at the top of her pink blouse. He pulls her hands to his face the way he saw the mother do it. Tadoma is used in deaf-blind patients to help them communicate. It allows them to feel the movements of the jaws and lips to communicate. _Rin,_ is all he can think when her fingers touch his face, the way she would trace his stripes, the days she would hold his face in her hands, kissing his moon, his nose and then his lips. _Are you in there my heart?_

The dog begins barking, shaking him out of his thoughts.

Sesshomaru can smell it before it begins. The girl's nose bleeds. The blood spills from her nostrils. He curses immediately compressing the damn organ. "Gauze," he yells at the nurse who stands nearby. "Get the treatment ready," he says to the other two doctor's. He helps the girl sit on the bed. Her hands shake against his wrist, becoming slippery along his skin. He pulls one of her hands to his the mouth, the other to his jaw line. "We're going to place an IV. The treatment will begin soon. Do you understand what I am saying?"

She nods her head and points to the protrusion on her shirt. His thumb and forefinger pull down the thin material over a gaunt shoulder. "She has a porta cath. We'll use it to deliver the medicine. She needs platelets."

"You have acute promyelocytic leukemia? A rarity," he says attempting a comforting voice as he takes the gauze from his nurses. He wads them into balls and stuffs them into her nostrils to staunch the flow. Her lap and his are now covered in a crimson tide.

She coughs trying to clear her throat. She slaps her hand against her thigh, her fingers move up and down as if she is playing a piano. The dog rummages in her bag and hits the computer with her muzzle.

He removes the computer opening it for her. There is something fascinating about watching a deaf and blind person navigate a computer system. She opens the program by pressing the corner of the screen. She types in quickly, _I'm going to die._ The voice is monotone not expressing the fear the child is feeling.

He takes her hands, moving them back to his mouth and jawline, "not today."

She shakes her head with tears. She turns back to the computer, _will it hurt?_

"It won't feel good," he tries to ignore the sensation her fingers are causing on his skin. "The nurses will place another IV line to make sure you stay hydrated. It takes six hours for the medicine to be administered. You'll experience a very high fever and some muscle pain. Eventually you'll lose consciousness and when you wake the leukemia will be gone."

She nods her head again then types, _thank you._

"Thank me when…" _not again…not again…_ he begs his body, he pleads with it, not now…but it doesn't listen. The dog is barking, his body is convulsing. He falls to the floor, slamming his head against the linoleum as blood pours from his mouth. Then the world goes dark.


	23. Rin-Past IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When all looks bleak, Shiori comes to the rescue.

**Rin-past**

The arrows are coming. At any moment they are going to purify the guard that she has come to call her friend. They streak through the air glowing blue and pink. She can hear them whizzing and buzzing, headed straight for him. He already has thirteen in his legs and back. He stands proudly, still partially transformed, looking more like a werewolf than a man, neither running or hiding and as she crouches behind the trees, she knows that he is offering himself so she can escape.

"Ka-san?" Yuki comes from the trees and runs into her mother's arms. Rin's stomach clenches.

"You were supposed to run!" she fumes at her daughter.

"Hisato?" The little girl doesn't understand the mistake she's made.

Rin ducks into the trees, terrified. They are filled with blue purifying light. She covers her mouth until she sees a white flash pass her and a tiny child stands in front of Hisato. Her eyes flash from lavender to white. Her palms come together and heavy barrier surrounds Hisato and Rin. The arrows fall unable to pierce it. The child's white hair is matted around her neck from the strength it takes her to stop the holy energy from entering.

"Send another volley!" the head monk yells, throwing his arm over his shoulder to encourage them to shoot.

"Quickly!" Shiori yells. Aun lands in front of them. Rin throws Yuki on the scaled back, crying in pain from the arrow through her shoulder. She grabs Hisato by the arm and shoves him onto the double headed dragon. "Get on!" she encourages him, unable to lift his body. He snorts something in return, weakly pulling his battered body on.

He gets on next. Shiori climbs on last holding the barrier. They fly into the air. Hisato pants holding his chest.

"Are you okay?" Rin asks him leaning heavily on Ah's head to stay upright. The shoulder stings and burns. She glances back to see the monks scattering and closes her eyes while the dragon supports her.

"I told you to leave," he rebukes Rin. "I told you…to stay behind…" he can't catch his breath. "Shiori-chan," Hisato lifts a tired hand and ruffles the girl's hair. "Thank you."

"Sato sent me. He said you were in trouble, we felt the reiki. Yuki-chan, you shouldn't run off." Shiori levels the other little girl with a glare that says she made a horrendous mistake.

"She's my daughter Hisato," Rin groans as the dragon lands in the private entrance of the home. "I couldn't leave her behind."

"I can't protect you, if you don't listen," Hisato breaths quickly.

Both maids wait for them with Nobuatsu. "Oh Kami," Akari helps Rin off by her good arm and supports her as they walk inside.

Nobuatsu pulls Hisato off and supports him into the back entrance. He whistles when he touches the arrows, his fingers smoke from the holy energy. "We need Taisho. These are sealing arrows. I won't be able to remove them," the horse demon says.

"No," Hisato shakes his head vehemently, "she's coming," he coughs leaning on his comrade. The horse demon carries him into the bedroom across the hall from Rin and Sesshomaru's.

"Ahhh!" Rin screams as she is set down in her room. Nobuatsu follows behind, graceful and quiet. He breaks off the back of the arrow sticking out from her chest. She screams at the pressure. "Hisato?" she begs.

"We'll worry about him as soon as you are stabilized," he kneels down in front of her. "You know what I must do?" It never ceases to amaze her how he is always so calm. His face is pale like Sesshomaru's but with less prominent cheekbones, and no bangs. The silver strands are always tied back in a high pony tail and although she can barely move and is covered in blood, he acts like nothing is wrong.

"I know," Rin braces herself. She takes the broken arrow shaft and bites it in between her teeth. "I'm ready," she grits out.

"Send for him," he encourages her.

She shakes her head, "no. Whatever is keeping him," she coughs gripping the blankets. "Just do it." Whatever is keeping him is more important and she won't call Sesshomaru back unless she is on her death bed.

"Ka-san?" Taiyomaru comes in from the hallway. "You're hurt!" He runs in, not knowing any better than to try to jump on her. She cries when he lands, but cradles his head. "It's okay. I'll be okay," she tries to reassure Taiyomaru. "We need Taisho," she whispers. He hasn't come back from his home by the well and the last message said they still couldn't get it open. She misses her nieces and worries over Kagome and Inuyasha.

"We'll get him," Yuki offers.

"Not alone," Rin breathes heavily, eyes glazing as Nobuatsu grips the back of the arrow. She knows what's coming.

"Send for him Rin-sama," Hisato says from the hallway, he leans painfully against the stone walls.

"Go lay down," she waves him off, preparing herself for the yank of the arrow.

"She's coming," he says quietly touching his heart. "She will remove the arrows."

Rin nods while Taiyomaru sits down touching the shaft protruding from her chest.

"Brace her Akari," Nobuatsu instructs the hanyou fire cat.

She kneels down on one knee and forces Rin's back to stay upright.

"Breathe," Nobuatsu says right before he puts pressure on the broken shaft shoving it backwards through her shoulder. When there is nothing left to push, he yanks it through the back of her shoulder by the arrow head. If she hadn't been against Akari's knee she would have collapsed.

She screams again, the world blurs, she nearly passes out. The pain sears through her shoulder. She can't catch her breath. She hears garbled voices around her. Hands clean the wound on her shoulder. She feels the sharp points of herbs digging into the wound, then bandages covering it. She coughs trying to catch her breath. She opens her eyes to little Taiyomaru standing over her. He presses down on the wound. "It hurts her," he says to Nobuatsu.

"You need to call him Rin-sama," the horse demon tells her.

She shakes her head. Whatever is happening at his mother's house is too important. She grits her teeth feeling something warm entering her shoulder. Her eyes half open expecting to see Sesshomaru, only for Taiyomaru to be the one whose hands are causing the soothing heat. "What are you doing?"

"Chichiue's light is inside, he wants you to feel better," the little one says.

She's too tired to ask questions. She passes out letting sleep and pain take her.


	24. Sesshomaru-Past IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world seems to be closing in on Sesshomaru as he returns to Rin but something isn't right when he can't find the monks who attacked her.

**Sesshomaru-past**

He feels her pain, then an intrusion. He speeds his coming. It is a race to see who will get there first. First he lands in front of the back door, the private entrance to his home, then in front of his mother. He throws the door open and rushes down the hall to his bedroom. He finds her with Taiyomaru leaning over her and light radiating from the hands of his youngest son. "What are you doing?" He stops short of ripping the boy's appendages off. There is an instinctual need to protect the spiritual bond from any intrusion no matter how small. He forces the feeling down, taking in Rin's form. A bloody bandage is wrapped around her shoulder. She smells of herbs and is covered in sweat.

"She hurts," Taiyomaru says simply. He is five, and every bit of a curious child, "Chichiue's light is inside her. It makes her feel better." His son's face is straining to maintain the connection to Sesshomaru's bond.

There are questions he still has about this child. He will easily overpower his brother and sister. He will not need to fear if Tsukimaru ever decides to take his life. He doesn't know what power the child contains, yet he now knows the boy will be stronger than the average hanyou. Taiyomaru can invade his connection to Rin. "You were taking her pain?" He takes his son by his shoulders.

"She's still bleeding," the little one says. He's all arms and legs, gangly with a thick head of hair and funny toothy grin. "I was too tired to make it stop." He holds his head and nearly collapses.

"You can touch her bond?" he asks, shocked.

"You told me to make her feel better until you came home," he sits down next to his mother exhausted.

He said no such thing, but there isn't time to ask more questions or understand how Taiyomaru was able to manipulate their bond. Taiyomaru lays down next to his mother holding her hand, eyes closing from the work it took to take her pain.

"Hisato, you look like a pin cushion!" Gobodo-sama yells from the room across the hall. "How did this happen?"

"What happened?" Sesshomaru unwraps the bandages revealing the angry wound to her left shoulder. He curses dipping his lips down to the wound. Touch-he still needs touch at times to heal her. He allows his yoki to manipulate their bond and rush to her shoulder. It seems no matter what he does for this shoulder, it remains injured. He healed it completely when she nearly died from Touma's blade. She writhed in pain when the bones rebuilt themselves, but she was on death's door anyway.

She groans in pain. He absorbs it, soothing it as he focuses on forcing the wound to close and rebuilding the broken bones and tissue.

A powerful swirl of yoki so strong it makes Sesshomaru choke rises from the other room, then another and another. He counts thirteen altogether, shaking his head. They will pay for this. He will destroy them.

For now, his focus is on Rin and fixing her shoulder.

Jaken comes in holding his staff nervously. "Sesshomaru-sama, please forgive this Jaken!"

Again with the groveling. In a century that is one thing that has not changed. "What happened?"

"We don't know yet. Yuki left the barrier, Rin and Hisato went after her. I tried to stop Rin, but she wouldn't listen!" Jaken cries out, and Sesshomaru knows it's more from fear.

He holds his lover's wrist in his hand half wanting to laugh. She has been rebellious since she was a teenager and if Yuki was in danger, even he couldn't force her to stay behind.

"It was monks and a priestess," Gobodo-sama walks into the room throwing the many arrows that pierced her lover onto the ground. "He was protecting her."

The words hit his gut like a knife. It isn't that he didn't believe the rumors, but they are easy to ignore when they aren't on your own doorstep.

Rin coughs. Her eyes open weakly, she caresses his cheeks. He kisses her palm. "My love," she whispers in greeting.

"My heart," he brings his lips down to hers. "What happened?"

"It's my fault," Yuki walks into the room with tears in her eyes. Her head is bowed and she averts her eyes, trembling from head to toe. "It's all my fault," she covers her eyes.

Sesshomaru sits down scooping Rin off the floor, holding her to his chest. "Yuki?" This child will be the death of him.

"I left the barrier alone…then they came…they were going to kill me." Her shoulders shake again and his anger flares. They could have easily purified her but it wouldn't destroy the yoki completely. _Why would they kill a child?_ His chest tightens.

"I told you," Gobodo-sama says from the hallway. "Hisato will need to rest. Tell one of your other sentinels to guard your human. He took thirteen arrows and was still moving."

"What happened to him? He transformed," Rin's eyes open all the way.

"It was a half transformation, he needed enough yoki to offset what they were trying to do. He can't transform the way we can, but when he is like that," she exhales bitterly. "We need to leave Sesshomaru."

He grits his teeth knowing he can't stay because another threat awaits them in the skies, but he doesn't want to leave Rin or his children now. "Will you be okay?"

"I'm sorry!" Yuki sobs behind him and it's enough to remind him that her actions nearly cost her mother her life. An angry back hand rises and slaps Yuki across the face. Her body flies backwards, slamming into the floor. "Stupid child," he fumes at Yuki

She cries in pain, landing on her side. He stands meaning to hit her again when Rin bolts upright and grabs his wrist trying to stop him. "Sesshomaru!"

He pushes Rin out the way, eyes set on his daughter as she wipes a bloody lip. Rin struggles off the floor and throws herself in between them again. "No!" she yells at him.

"She nearly got you killed." His jaw tenses with the temptation of shoving her out of the way again.

"That doesn't mean you need to beat her!"

"She does this because you coddle her!" Rin backs into the corner where Yuki is cringing.

"I won't let you."

" _You_ won't let _me_?" He closes his eyes, snickering at her. He towers over both of them as he leans against the wall with the two of them.

"Sesshomaru, please," her voice breaks begging him and he curses.

"This is not finished. Yuki, you will not leave the barrier again! No one does," he knows his eyes are too hard as he pivots from Rin. His blood is boiling, he needs to taste battle, to free himself. "Yuki, if you leave the barrier again, you will get more than a slap."

"I'm sorry," the girl sobs trying holding her mother around the waist. "I didn't mean to."

"And yet you did," he stands up. He has their scent from the arrows. They won't escape his wrath.

"What is wrong with you?" There are tears in Rin's eyes. She pulls their daughter to her chest. Taiyomaru cringes behind his mother. Harutoga is nowhere to be seen.

He doesn't care, he can't answer. Yuki is thirteen and knows better than to leave the barrier. She may be in the body of a seven year old, but she disregards most if not all of what he says. A human thirteen year old wouldn't be so flagrantly stupid as to endanger the others around her. He tilts his head to his mother to follow him, "Feel like hunting?"

"Very much so," she trails behind him.

"You're leaving?" Rin runs behind him holding onto his wrist. Her touch does nothing but bring him anger.

He says nothing and continues for the door.

"Sesshomaru, stop," she tugs on his hand and he relents. "I…" but she stops short as he lifts her hand to his heart, sharing his emotions. He is furious with the monks, furious with Yuki and even more, angered and upset with her for stepping between them, for undermining him.

He pushes her away from him and leaves their home, soaring into the sky next to his mother. Retribution will be swift. "Thirteen arrows," she shakes her head, "no wonder they need so many."

"Weaklings," Sesshomaru snarls.

"Is that how she treats you?" Gobodo-sama asks him. "Even I would have given Yuki a sound beating."

"She will get one, when I return."

"And if your human protests?"

And his stomach clenches, understanding the disrespect that Rin showed him. The question doesn't require an answer.

As they land in the clearing where Rin was injured, Gobodo-sama twirls around, eyes blazing. "What magic is this?"

"I can't smell anything either." There are arrows, there is the blood of Hisato and Rin, but all traces of the monks have been erased. "They don't want us to know who they are. What is going on?"

"I tried to tell you, Sesshomaru…they are attacking in force. They are picking off whatever they can find. Not even our children are safe. Just bed Natsuki and get it over with." She flies into the air.

"No," he says, following behind her. "We will find another way to maintain this truce."

"We can't afford a battle right now."

"I will not lose my bond to Rin again."


	25. Yuki-past II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuki asks Hisato if her grandmother loves her as much Tsukimaru.

**Yuki-Past**

He returned furious and yelling. Ka-san tried to stop him but he tossed her out of the way and she shrank back before Yuki was dragged into his study. She hasn't stopped crying since. She lays stomach down on her futon, her backside swollen with bruises. He didn't use his hand this time but his whip until she howled in pain. He cursed her for being a stubborn and stupid child. He carried her back to her room, flopping her on her stomach and then Ka-san and Chichiue started shouting at each other. He said he was tired of her always interfering and she said he was acting like a monster. He threatened her if she didn't stop berating him and she screamed at him that he was being unfair. He left furious.

The first time Chichiue hit her was five years before when she ran off to find Bukoseno alone. After that, there were times she knew she pushed and if she was really bad, she faced him when he came home. It was worse this time.

"This wouldn't happen if you would stop wandering off!" Harutoga yells at her while he dips a cloth into a bucket of cold water. He lifts her blood stained kimono off her shoulders down her flat waist. She cries as the material is peeled of her tattered skin. He said if she ever ran off or left the barrier again, he would do worse and it was better that she faced him than face the monks again. They would have killed her.

"Shut up!" she screams at him, swiping at his face. "Just get out."

"It's my room too!" Harutoga snipes at her.

"No it's not! It was never your room. It's mine! Get out!"

Harutoga didn't hear what Shiori said. _Does Soba-sama hate me?_ Harutoga growls as he leaves to room.

No sooner does the door close then it opens again and Taiyomaru comes in followed by Katsumoto. Taiyomaru holds a jar and she recognizes the yellow cream inside. The elder demon says nothing, except to lean down next to her on his knees and rinse the cloth on her back. Taiyomaru goes to her other side and his tiny finger wedges the cream into the broken strips of her skin. She winces, flinches, and then cries harder because of how it stings.

"Where's Ka-san?" she asks her youngest brother.

"He said she couldn't comfort you," Taiyomaru answers. "Shh," he leans over Yuki and sets his hands over her back. She feels heat and then the sting bites less. It's almost as if she can feel her skin knitting back together.

"Good little one," Katsumoto says to Taiyomaru. "Is that better, Yuki?"

The dog-demon's hand is warm when it touches her cheek.

"What did you do, Taiyomaru?" She sits up touching the tender flesh of her back. Thin pieces of new flesh cover the gashes her father left her. It still hurts and her muscles are sore but it's not as bad as before.

"Chichiue's light is inside you. It hurt him to hurt you," Taiyomaru says plainly.

"No it didn't," she snarls and finds herself crawling into Katsumoto's lap. "Where were you?"

He loops an arm around her side. She smells shock at first as his body stiffens but she wants someone to hold her. It was scary enough facing a group of monks that wanted her dead, she didn't need to face her father's rage after that.

"Here. We sensed the reiki, it was less risky to send Hisato. If they came to the barrier, my strength was needed here."

"I really messed up?" She can't hold back and buries her face in his shoulder.

"It was stupid, little one," Katsumoto exhales next to her ear. "Very stupid."

"Why can't you just listen?" Taiyomaru stands up with the bucket of bloody water and leaves the room. "You wouldn't get in trouble all the time."

* * *

It's night by the time that she leaves Katsumoto's lap. For reasons she didn't understand, he allowed her to sit and mope and at least someone was willing to hug her. Her stomach is growling. She wants dinner, but there is someone else she needs to talk to. His yoki is weak, but his scent is strong. Years before, Chichiue moved Hisato into the room Jaken used to live in and Jaken was given a bigger room down a side hall. "Yuki, where are you going?" Jaken calls her from the hallway.

"To see Hisato," she says right next to his door.

"You better not run off again," he turns and goes to Chichiue's study. She knocks on the door. There is no answer. _Maybe he's sleeping_. She purses her lips before jogging down the hall to the supply closet. Her back hurts less now that Taiyomaru did whatever he did. Even she knows he's weird. She pulls another jar of the yellow cream from the shelf, and then goes into the kitchen to get a bucket of cold water and fresh cloths. Even she knows when she has done something wrong.

By the time she comes back her mother eyes her curiously and kneels down in front of her. "You cannot leave the barrier again without Katsumoto. Do you understand now how dangerous what you did was?"

She nods and wipes her eyes, setting the bucket and the cream down to wrap her arms around her mother's neck. "I was so scared!"

Her mother responds with equal urgency, holding her. She pulls back after a minute. "I need to go help Hisato. It's my fault he's hurt so badly."

She opens his door. He doesn't stir from his place on the bed. His sheets are covered in blood. His haori is off and his back is covered in blood soaked bandages. His legs are bare leaving him in just his fudoshi. She climbs onto his futon, setting the bucket on the side. She uses her claws to remove the bandages from his back. With that movement against him, his eyes lazily open. "Yuki?"

"Why didn't she heal you?" She knows the bond allows them to do so. Chichiue does it all the time for Ka-san's bad injuries.

He snorts and replies, "This is after she did." He grunts in pain as the last bandage is removed. She sets about her job, cleaning the blood off his back, while attempting to avoid reopening his wounds that are just beginning to clot. "Why did you leave the barrier, little one?"

"Shiori-chan said her Ojisama killed her Chichiue." She's going to cry again and she doesn't want to. "Does Soba-sama like Tsukimaru better than us? Is that why Natsuki lives with her?"

Hisato grabs Yuki's hand from over his shoulder. "Why would you ask that? She's never shown favor for one grand-child over the other."

"Does she like him more because he's pure-blooded and we're not?"

"No." The tone of his voice gives her hope.

"I need to apologize to Chichiue. Can you ask her to send him?"

"My yoki is too weak to speak to her from this distance."

"Can I send Aun with a message?"

"You're asking?"

"I'm sorry, Hisato-san." She hugs him around the back. "I'm really sorry."

"The women in this house," he laughs holding her hand. "Don't leave without Katsumoto again."

"Okay." She can taste her tears in her mouth as she opens the jar to smooth the cream into the injuries on his back.

"Send your message."

She nods, for once feeling more like the teen she is supposed to be, despite the childlike body she is in.

* * *

As night falls, Yuki finds no rest. Her back still hurts enough to keep her from sleeping on it and whenever she changes positions it twinges making her want to cry. She untangles herself from her brothers' arms and opens the door to her bedroom. Katsumoto sits on Hisato's bed speaking quietly and glances over at her as she shields her eyes from the torches that line the hallway. "What's wrong, little one?"

She rubs her back but doesn't say how much pain she is in. She can hear her mother crying on the other side of her door. "I'm hungry," she says, because it's only partly true.

"Go to the private dining hall. I'll join you shortly." Katsumoto carries on speaking to Hisato.

She slowly approaches the dining hall only to turn to her father's study. She touches the door nervously, where before he had dragged her in and tossed her on the ground. She grimaces, closing her eyes, trying to push the memory out. Opening the door, she finds Jaken sitting at her father's desk. "Come in Yuki-chan," he says happily, so happily it makes her sick.

She comes in and sits down in one of the chairs. "Does he hate me?"

"Of course not." Jaken sets the quill down.

"My back hurts." She covers her eyes crying.

"He was scared, although he'll never admit it."

"Are they going to break up again?" Not for the first time she wonders if she'll be the ruin of her father's relationship with her mother.

"No," she hears her father's voice behind her and she stands up wiping her eyes, backing away fearfully against the bookshelf.

He must sense her fear because he crosses the threshold of his office and reaches down, lifting her up. "Yuki," Sesshomaru consoles his daughter. He kisses her cheek and she breathes in the smell of forest and pines while holding tight to his shoulder. He takes her out of his study, across the hall and out an open window, flying with her into the air until they land on the other side of the lake. She curls into his armor-free chest, hugging him. He pulls the back of her yukata open revealing tender flesh. "Who did this?"

"Taiyomaru," she whimpers. "Do you hate me?"

"No," he nuzzles her nose lovingly. "It was dangerous."

"I know."

"You will heal yourself. Do you remember how?" He strokes her back gently, so softly it's hard to believe the same hands attacked her earlier.

She nods her head, focusing her yoki into the damaged skin of her back until she wavers in her father's lap. Wielding her yoki to force her wounds to close is exhausting. "You will not tell Ka-san I was here."

"She's upset with you."

"And I with her, I came for you. Why did you leave the barrier?"

She relaxes into her father's embraces, breathing deeply of the fur that wraps over his shoulder. Nervously she bites her lower lip. "Shiori-chan said her Ojisama killed her Chichiue because he was with a human…" the unspoken question is left hanging in the air.

She feels him shift from the nest she's made herself against his chest, surrounded by the fluff of his mokomoko. "You think Soba-sama will try to kill me because of your mother."

"Yeah." Her knees meet her chin. "She is stronger than you."

"She loves you." She can feel his fingers running up and down her furry ears. "She doesn't see you as less than Tsukimaru, or Rin as competition to Natsuki."

Yuki struggles to understand. She's been sworn to silence about Natsuki's visits while her father is away. It's why Taiyomaru loves Tsukimaru so much. The two play together and her mother tells her that she does it because Taiyomaru would never calm as a baby, except for his father and his brother. "Do you love him more than me?"

"No." A kiss is left lingering on the top of her head. "You are my daughter Yuki."

"You left Ka-san after I was born."

He tenses and the air becomes stiff between them. "Yuki, were you scared today?"

"Yes."

His fingers massage his neck almost as if the wound that was there before is still open. She knows about that too, that Touma had ripped his throat open and that was why he died in the snow that day. "Even Chichiue needs time to recover from fear."

"You mean like how I want to be alone when I'm upset?"

He nods.

"Does he mean more to you? I heard you and Ka-san fighting about you wanting to see him more often." She thinks about what she just said as her father's arm tighten around her.

"Would you miss Chichiue if you only saw me once a week?"

"I missed you all the time before," she says honestly. It ached when he was never home. "You miss him don't you?"

He nods again. "Tsukimaru is my son."

"I'm sorry I ran off Chichiue." She snuggles into his chest, nuzzling the skin of his neck affectionately.

"Chichiue would be very sad if Yuki died," he mutters by her ear. "My little one. Chichiue loves you, no more and no less than your brothers."

"Why can't you make me a sister? Boys are annoying and not with her."

"Ka-san doesn't want more children." They begin shifting and soaring through the air. "Time for sleep." She climbs over his shoulder onto his back as they glide back to their home.

Just as they land by the back door, Jaken comes running out with a message. He hands it to Sesshomaru and she can see her father's face fall.

"What is it, Chichiue?"

"A letter from Taisho," he hands it back to Jaken. "Inuyasha is ill. Jinenji needs herbs from our garden."


	26. Kagome past III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kagome tries again to get the well open but can't.

**Kagome**

**Three Weeks Later**

She leans over the well…again.

They've been at this for weeks, trying to force it open, morning, noon, and night, and all she can think of is how scared she is for her two daughters. Did he remember? It isn't that she didn't trust her mother to raise her daughters, but Izayoi doesn't look human, with white hair, golden eyes, claws, fangs and wiggly, fuzzy dog ears on top of her head. She can't blend in.

The well bursts into an explosion of virulent blues, pinks and hues of violet, throwing her and Taisho onto the ground…again.

Her back is on fire, her shoulders ache. Taisho's back isn't much better but his yoki heals it faster than hers. He rises off the ground, grunting and wiping his nose. "This is ridiculous." He joins her by the well again to try to pry it open.

Inuyasha is resting nearby underneath a tree rubbing his forehead. He has a fever, a rash has broken out on the soles of his feet. It's painful and often bleeds. Jinenji wraps his feet in clay and herbs to alleviate the pain, he's nearly as tall as the tree that Inuyasha is sitting under. Nearby Miroku and Sango watch while some of their younger children happily run incircles in Inuyasha's forest.

"She won't give up?" Sango asks while her youngest son Hiroshi runs circles chasing his sisters in the grass.

"No," Inuyasha grimaces while Jinenji removes the poultices from his blistered feet. They are stained in blood and yellow ooze.

"There's nothing else to try?" Miroku asks the hanyou who towers over them.

"I've tried all my herbs. Sesshomaru-sama sent new ones. I haven't seen this kind of illness before," he speaks quietly, and thoughtfully.

On Sango's lap, Kirara mews and yawns finding a place in her lap. "I don't like this. It's like something dark is hovering over us."

"It'll be fine," Inuyasha says confidently.

Kagome observes the conversation from the well, hoping that they are right and that it will all be fine, but there are things she knows and she is cursing herself for never asking more questions, for never prying it out of him. _Is this it?_ Fear takes her as she gazes at her lover, _is this the Disease that he said killed them? Is this why I never saw you in the future?_ It had always vexed her that she had never met Inuyasha in her future. Sesshomaru adjured her on many occasions that Inuyasha was there.

She thought perhaps hidden. Maybe he couldn't say where he was.

"Try again," she tells Taisho as she gathers her spiritual power. It swirls around her, wrapping her in blinding, tepid pink light. "Taisho?" she yells at her son. He wants to give up and she knows it.

"It's not working Ka-san," he says defeated. "That's it. It's shut," he sits down next to the well. "They're stuck." His face is crestfallen, he breathes heavily.

"I don't accept that!" she yells at her son. "Help me!"

"It's over Ka-san…I'm going to pack my things and head back to Ojisama's house," he kicks the Well as he walks away to their hut.

"Taisho!" she calls to him. This child will be the death of her, if she can still call him one. He's eighteen now, defiant, his own person.

"Kagome!" Inuyasha calls as he pants underneath the tree.

Her eyes soften seeing him, the others have left and that makes her relieved. There is a red sheen around his eyes, his cheeks are bright. She makes her way to her lover. His feet are wrapped in bandages that are already soaking through with blood. She sits down next to him and touches his forehead. He has already made his mother's liver broth. It didn't help. The herbs from Nobuatsu's garden have helped somewhat but not enough.

He coughs lightly, rubbing his forehead, "I feel horrible." He's slumped against the rivulets of the deep brown trunk behind him.

"You don't look good," Kagome leans underneath his arm to hoist him off the ground. "We should take you to the river and wash those feet."

"This is after they were cleaned. Just let me sit," he says exhausted. "I'm normally not sick for this long."

"You said you felt better last night," she reminds him. "The fever broke, why did it come back?"

"You tell me, you're the nurse," he says proudly. "At least you were able to finish before the well closed."

She bursts into tears turning from him. How can she cry when he feels so awful himself? "I can't do this," she whispers sadly. "You have to get better, Inuyasha. I can't lose you too."

"I'm tough, you worry too much," he says as he accepts her help to get off the grass. His eyes follow his son who has packed his small bag. Sayako and Sota left two weeks earlier. They'll go visit them when he feels better. She smiles thinking of Tatsuo, the gorgeous little boy that has stolen her heart. The child smiles as if there are no cares in the world and nothing can harm him.

"Your feet are bleeding and you've been running a fever for weeks," she whispers. _Please don't let this be the disease he spoke of._

Taisho sits down with them. "I'm ready to go. I'm sorry Ka-san…I'll come back in a few weeks to try again."

"He can't teach you about your spiritual powers Taisho," the mother reminds her son. It's going to rain soon. The sun is covered with angry grey clouds. Plump rain drops begin to fall from the sky. "It's starting to rain."

"The easier to get there without someone tracking me," he says nervously. "They need me Ka-san."

"We need you," Kagome says, but is stopped by a hand on top of hers. It's then she feels the raising bumps of blisters growing on the palm of his hand. "We need to find a Healer."

"I'll send Nobuatsu," Taisho offers. "When I get back."

"Jinenji is the best there is. If he can't get these to calm down, I don't know," Inuyasha forces a smile on his tired face. "Just go. I'll be here when you come home."

"Bye To-san," he hugs his parents and jogs into the forest.

They arrive back at their hut and she immediately sets him down on the furs on the floor that Rin and Sesshomaru sent for him. His eyes close, but before she can get up to tend to the village, Inuyasha grabs her around the waist bringing her back down. "It'll be okay Kagome…you'll see. The well will open again, the girls will be fine."

"I can't help it," she lays down next to him. "I'm worried about them."

"Your mom will take care of them."

"I know…I'm almost offended that he thinks there is a better place than here."

"It's easier for him to be who he is there. Besides, when Sesshomaru sent the letter he said that Yuki was attacked by monks. Rin was injured, they almost lost Hisato."

"You two talk quite a bit now," she smiles. It was better than them always fighting.

"Some things are in the past. Hideki threatened Taisho a few days ago. He didn't want to worry you, but he attacked him."

"That kid has been a nuisance since he was born," Kagome snorts. He was the same child that had thrown Taisho in the river when he was two years old, the same one that attempted to seduce Rin when she was a girl and the same one the two boys had pummeled until he finally married and was too inundated with children to bother them. "What happened?"

"Taisho beat the hell out of him," he laughs proudly. "He's learned more with Sesshomaru than I could teach him. He has better control over his poison and he makes my skin crawl when he calls on the full extent of his spiritual powers. They were happy with us," he claws her hair. "They just need to be where they belong."

"And you?"

"It was never easy here…it's why we live on the outskirts. He sent the warning because he's worried they will come back here."

"Should we leave?" It hasn't occurred to her that the fight would be brought to them.

"I don't know. For now, Sango and Miroku will fight for me. I have you," he kisses her brow. "Nothing bad is going to happen."


	27. Natsuki Past II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natsuki struggles to do what is right even when she is approached by Sesshomaru

**Natsuki-past**

For three weeks the arguments raged. She was being dishonored, humiliated, it wasn't their way. At the bottom of it, she knew what her father was after. She kept her distance from Sesshomaru, only passing Tsukimaru through servants until she couldn't stand it any longer.

It was the middle of the night, the arguments had finally stopped. Sesshomaru adjured Kensaku that he would live with Natsuki at the end of Rin's life and that then and only then they would be together. Kensaku tried to bully Sesshomaru into bedding Natsuki at least once while they were both in the castle. He refused. It didn't bother her. Her time would come.

Of course the entire time the meetings happened, her father insisted they sit next to each other, which meant gentle caresses passed between the two. His finger would brush against her hip by accident when he moved, her elbow pressed into his side if she didn't pay attention. Heat would build between them and no matter how she tried, she couldn't keep her yoki from reaching out to his, and during quiet moments, she could feel his breaching hers.

Natsuki screamed during one meeting that she wasn't suffering, it was her choice. She fought with her father and felt trapped between the two. The only reason her father wanted her to interfere was because of Sesshomaru's barrier made of reiki.

She raises her hand to knock on his door, then stops herself. She raises it again opening her mouth only to close it. Before she can try again, he rips the door open. She's holding Tsukimaru. He's her peace offering, a pathetic hope that he won't turn her away. As soon as the door opens, the baby jumps out of her arms and into the arms of his father. She hasn't seen the two of them together in years. Tsukimaru greedily grabs at his father's face, pinching his nose, laughing and tugging on his hair. She smiles happily. "I didn't realize you two were such good friends." Tsukimaru finds strips of Sesshomaru's hair and puts them in his mouth.

"What are you doing here?" He lifts his son to his lips, kissing his crescent moon and bouncing him on his hip.

"I…my father…." She stops herself, "I'm trapped. Whatever I say, I betray someone close to me."

"You would term our relationship close?" He laughs devilishly, making her heart drop. It's not easy being bound to someone who wants nothing to do with you, or finding out he took his current lover to his family's Villa but not her. They never had the time to cement their relationship. She can feel it though as she takes in the harshness of his, the cool amber colored rocks staring back at her, his yoki rises and it takes all her strength to stop herself from entangling herself in it.

"I helped your human. I fought for you," she says firmly. She helped slay the ogre king, she depleted her own yoki to save Rin, _I deserve more than this._ "I'm trying to make up for what I did."

"And now you intend to betray your father," he motions her to come inside. He shuts the door and sits down by the window tickling his son's sides. The baby giggles hysterically and the snuggles onto his father's shoulder.

"I'm trying, Sesshomaru, does that mean nothing? I've kept my distance. I keep my feelings inside so you don't feel them. We agreed," she sits in front of him, smiling again. "I like seeing you with him."

"He's my son." He says it so incredulously she almost regrets the smile that is stretching her cheeks. It feels good to know that he loves this child as much as the others.

"I thought you would love the other three more," she can't look at him when she says that. "He wasn't made in love as they were."

"Tsukimaru is the same as my other three children. Thank you for sending him to me daily." He nuzzles the inside of the child's neck making him laugh again. "Why did you come? I know you can feel it between us."

"It's like a vortex," she rubs her heart, it takes all her effort to remain so far away from him. Their bonds are resonating off each other, sucking them in. "I know why my father is doing this. I had nothing to do with it, Sesshomaru. I was fine waiting until Rin dies…but…it's my father. He's scared. The monks are attacking. They can't detect your home because the reiki cancels out the yoki and he wants me to live with you so I can find out how you made the barrier."

Sesshomaru scoffs lowering his head. "You choose to be loyal to this Sesshomaru?"

She nods her head. "I…"

"Love me?" He starts laughing genuinely at her absurdity and she feels ridiculous for the warmth in her heart she feels for him.

"No," she whispers, obviously hurt by his indifference. "I want to make the right choice this time. I acted for myself last time and you are the father of my son. If my father hurts you, he'll hurt me. And Tsukimaru could lose both of us. He deserves better than that."

"Thank you," he says scooting forward. He cups her chin and nuzzles her nose, their lips brush against each other for the briefest moment. He rests their crescent moons together. "I will end this."

"Why can't you just tell him?"

"There are too many that depend on the barrier for safety. My children included," he passes Tsukimaru back to Natsuki. "Your father hasn't made the right allies."

"He hates humans," she gazes at him longingly. Their lips meet again. He cups her face, dipping his tongue into her mouth. Her breath quickens, until she pushes him back. She made a promise.

"You need to leave now," he tells her panting. She can see it, he's about to lose control.

She can feel his yoki rising, wanting to wrap around her, tugging at her senses. "You need to learn to control that."

She rises to leave but he catches her wrist, pulling her back into his lap. She feels his nose and mouth against her neck. "Are you happy here, Natsuki?"

"It's lonely sometimes. Your mother isn't always the best company. My friends are in the West but with the way things are…" she trails off. "I heard about your daughter. Is she okay?"

"She is well." His nose rubs against her skin making her bite her lip.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly, and kisses the joint of her neck, his lips burning a scar into her neck. "This is not how it was meant to be."

"I don't understand." She tries to get up again, only for his hold to tighten. "Sesshomaru, you're going to do something you regret." Tsukimaru squirms in her arms, trying to twist out of her grasp back to his.

"If we were human, would I be asked to make such sacrifices?"

His words are distant but his lips are so close to her skin.

"To give more to the three children in my home and leave the one here behind. What will he think of this Sesshomaru when he is grown? That I loved them more than him?" He reaches over her shoulder and caresses his son's cheek with his crooked finger. "How can I trade his happiness for theirs?"

"I tell him you love him."

"I barely see him," she hears a pain in his voice, unspoken words. "When this is over, I will come more frequently."

She's left stunned by his words. "When he's weaned, I'll send him to you. Only fifteen more years." Teeth scrape against her shoulder and she leans forward, trying to get away from his mouth. "Why are you doing this?" she pants out. "We can't…"

"I'm exhausted, Natsuki…my daughter is attacked for what she is. My son is in the sky…my lover," he closes his eyes resting them against the window. "She…if Tsukimaru ran away and nearly caused one of our deaths, what would you do?"

"Beat him, we would teach him better than that."

"And if he didn't listen."

"He will."

"You know nothing of children, sweet one. If he didn't listen?"

"I suppose if it was that bad…we would beat him and hope he learns. What's wrong?" She finally does what she had been avoiding and she opens her bond, feeling an ache in his heart, a sadness, tenseness, stress and exhaustion. "You need to sleep."

"There is no time for sleep. Your father complicates matters. You are happy here?"

"You care?"

"I care," he rests his face in her hair, breathing deeply. "If we were human, you would be my second wife. I would still be obligated to care for you, to ensure your happiness. Are you happy here?"

"I miss home," she admits sourly. "My brother, he just turned a hundred and seventy. We used to play together in the fields around our home."

"Do you wish to return?"

"When it's safe. I hear the rumors, the fear," she holds her son close. "I can't lose him. I can't lose our son, Sesshomaru."

"We won't lose him. You are safe here, in the skies. I'm sorry that this is our fate." He finally releases her but holds her hand as she glides to the door. "Natsuki?"

She can feel it, the need within him. He's boiling, but not with lust, with an ache, that she reaches out to comfort with her own yoki. "Why aren't you going to her?"

He shakes his head and doesn't answer.

She forces more of her yoki inside of him, like a tense breath. "You can really end it?"

"Easily, leave," he waves her away. "I'll send Tsukimaru back with a servant," he removes the baby from her hands again.

She holds her chest to steady her heart as she leaves. She smiles, _I did the right thing. But he was pushing it._ She rubs her neck where his mouth was just moments before. _He was pushing it._


	28. Sesshomaru Past V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru tries to make amends with Rin but life is never easy.

**Sesshomaru-past**

At first she was furious and he was glad they were separated for so long. The talks were endless and at no point would Kensaku yield what he was after. Days turned into weeks, but then he felt Rin's emotions shift from anger, to resignation, then yearning. During the day he ignored his bond to her to deal with the crisis at hand, but his ache for her was growing.

Ending the conflict with Kensaku was not as simple as he had originally hoped. If Kensaku was after the black stone, Sesshomaru wouldn't tell him where he had found it. Hosenki had forged it, a combination of yoki and reiki that is loyal to the demon it is bound to. But as he exits the final meeting, where no progress was made, he can feel Rin again. She's frustrated about something and yearning for his presence. He hasn't been home in three weeks and hasn't slept in longer than that. Natsuki's comfort was fleeting, a bandage to a bleeding heart.

It was tempting to sleep with Natsuki the night she showed up at his door. But even the embrace of her yoki didn't bring him the refuge he was seeking. She leaves the dining area, a torment to his soul that he has been forced to be so close to so frequently. A small girl with black hair, plaited in two, hands her their son. Tsukimaru whines, reaching for Natsuki, and nuzzles into her breast and a part of him is saddened his son isn't reaching for him this time.

He turns away stroking the scar on his heart through his crimson silk haori. It stings. What is it, my heart?

He exits the castle down the stairs at the entrance, only to be ambushed. This time there are five of them. He rolls his eyes. Battle is not what they need now. For seconds he considers reminding them who is stronger until one is behind him with a grip around his neck, the others reach for his arms, another reaches for his katana. He swirls in the air, rolling the one on his back, throwing him. His back burns as it's been hacked into and blood drips down his skin.

He twists into the second one, elbowing him harshly in the stomach, and with a satisfying snap, the rib cage is broken. Bakusaiga is drawn and a load of voltaic energy that cracks the skies like lightning is released. The blast fells two of his enemies, scalding the third, the fourth is gasping for air from the broken rib and the final one hovers, keeping his distance. "Leave," he warns them, prepared to end the final three. Battle…more bloodshed, when our blood is being shed below.

"Kensaku has placed a bounty on your head," the brown haired one speaks. "A bounty that is forfeit if you return to the castle."

He smirks in disbelief. Raising his katana, he slashes it through the air, sending waves of voltaic energy over their heads in threat.

They dodge, missing the bolts as he hoped they would, then retreat.

His journey resumes.

Rin lands on her back, sliding across the dry dirt, with Hisato standing over her. Sesshomaru observes from the trees as she pulls herself off the ground. The guard comments on her form, how she should square her shoulders, widen her feet and then they begin to spar again. Hisato flies over her head, landing behind her. Rin tries to flip onto his shoulders but she isn't fast enough. Hisato catches her by the arm and tosses her, sending her flying.

"Dammit!" she fumes, panting on her back. She's dressed in short black kimono, bearing her beautifully toned legs.

He finally moves from the trees into the clearing, unsure of how she will take his presence. He left her furious three weeks before. No words had passed between them in that time. "I should have known that you would come," she says approaching him, her scent is cautious. "Hisato, you can go." She massages her shoulder, rolling it, wincing. "I think I have some new scrapes."

He circles her, licking his thumb, sliding the saliva into the wounds. Their fingers intertwine as he leads her to walk around their lake. The lake feeds their garden with irrigation, something Kagome taught them about. Surrounding the edge of the lake are apple, pear and orange trees. He picks an orange from the tree as they pass it and hands it to her. "You're frustrated."

"I can't land that move. He's too fast." She begins peeling the orange, filling the air with the sweet scent of citrus. "I guess we need to talk about what happened." The peels are tossed to the side and she breaks a plump piece off.

"We did not part on good terms." They walk quietly together. "Where are the children?"

"Taisho took them for an adventure outside the barrier with Katsumoto and Sato. They wanted to help with the hunting. He's masking them with a small reiki barrier. I don't like what you did."

He nods in agreement. "Children must learn their limits."

"By beating them?" She eats another orange slice and he turns to kiss her. He dips his tongue into her mouth, swirling it around the fruit, then across her lips. "She was already upset by what happened." Her arms wrap around his waist, then she backs up as she removes his armor to get closer to him.

"Rin..."

"It doesn't make sense, you stopped Kaede-sama from caning me, how could you do that to Yuki?"

"You and Yuki are not the same. You had no family, you were beaten by the villagers for surviving, kidnapped by Naraku. It was enough and you were an obedient child until you became a teen, but Yuki," he smiles happily. "Yuki is not like you. She has your fire, but she doesn't know her limits. She disregards the rules because she thinks she is strong enough to survive what comes to her. She nearly killed you, Hisato….has she left the barrier again?"

"No," Rin chuckles finishing the orange. "She even asks permission before leaving the house. She apologized to Hisato, to me, to Shiori. How could you do that to her?"

"Chichiue did worse to me. There was a time when I was very young that I also ran away. I was lost for weeks, far from home and kidnapped, held ransom."

"I can't imagine anyone being able to hold you hostage."

"I was a child and we were at war. I was warned not to leave the confines of our home alone. Chichiue and Haha-ue slaughtered their enemies to retrieve me and what was initially a happy reunion, I regretted for years afterwards. It wasn't enough that I was taken. I knew they would come for me. Just like you knew I would always come for you."

"You think she would have done it again after that?"

He nods quietly. "I took no pleasure in what I did to Yuki, my heart. Or how it affected you."

"How much longer? This is taking forever. What's going on up there?"

He shakes his head, sitting down on a boulder and pulling her against his chest. "Another week, maybe more. I'll be home as soon as I can."

"The borders are stable. Katashi and Taisho patrol it regularly. Sota is holding the south. We're safe here for now."

Safe, he thinks, how tentative that safety is with Kensaku's army looming over them. If he ran, he would be seen as a coward, his honor finally vanquished. If he stays, he risks losing them, but if he concedes, the final talk ended with he and Natsuki being excused and negotiations being resumed by his mother and Kensaku.

"I'm tired," he tells her, wrapping an arm around her waist, flying with her back to their home. They land in the garden and he begins removing his layers.

She starts removing the short kimono she wears and the wraps from her hands and feet. His underlayer is peeled off his back, matted with blood. "Sesshomaru?!" He feels her hands running the length of his back. He glances over his shoulder to see five gashes from the back of his neck down to his tailbone.

"What's going on that you can't tell me?" her voice echoes in disbelief.

Her eyes break him, but he refuses to tell her that she is the cause of this, that he is fighting to keep her safe. He slides into the water instead, ignoring the sting of the sulfur as it sluices into the gashes. He rests against the ledge as he feels his hair gathered behind his head. She lifts the stone bowl they keep next to the springs, dipping it into the water and pouring the liquid over his head. He exhales heavily, forgetting how whole her touch makes him feel and reminded how fleeting Natsuki's yoki was. His eyes close and she is just as quiet as he is as she scrubs the nape of his neck. He groans in comfort, leaning into her firm fingers. His eyes open to see her nude and beautiful, but exhaustion keeps him from becoming aroused.

She starts on his shoulders and back next. "Lean forward, my love," she pushes on his shoulders and his back burns as he does. "These are bad." He can feel her fingers running along them, examining them. "Sesshomaru? Who did this to you? They look like your claws." Her voice is washed in worry and again he shakes his head, remaining silent. There is strength in silence, he doesn't have to admit that he's seen Natsuki almost daily for the last three weeks, that he nearly bedded her, or that he had tasted her lips again. It's like he's being torn in two.

She rinses his back, cleaning the knows that she'll want to wrap them before he leaves. She slides into the water and stands in front of him smiling meekly, but even the water of the springs isn't hiding her arousal. The way she licks her lips is so inviting but he's so tired. She finishes his front and they climb out together. He goes to gather his clothes for the servants to wash, when she tugs his haori out of his hands. He turns to her curiously, cocking an eyebrow.

She brings it up to her nose, inhaling deeply. "It smells like you. I haven't slept well in two weeks. I'll have them wash it when you get home."

He tugs her into his arms and slowly kisses her lips, luxuriating in their warmth. He licks the inside of her mouth then hangs his crescent moon over her forehead. "I need sleep. Come to bed with me."

"What if the kids need me?"

"The servants will care for them," he takes her hand and leads her into their bedroom. "We need to move our bedding," he says quietly as he lays down.

"It will be night soon," she says laying down with him. He rolls her onto her back and then rests his head between her breasts. "The children will need dinner."

"We have servants," he reminds her again, somewhat annoyed.

She exhales, caressing his chin and his ears. "So…you aren't…"

"Rin," it comes out more tersely. "I'm tired." He resists reminding her the many nights he holds her for hours until she is deep in sleep and the mornings he returns an hour before she wakes, so she wakes in his arms. His eyes close quickly and sleep overtakes him. This is what he needed. Rin, he nuzzles deeper into her the valley of her breasts. I've missed you. "Sleep, my love," he hears her whisper near his ears.

It's dark by the time he wakes and he is in full alert. A flood of yoki is in the bedroom with him. He stands up completely naked to find his mother standing over him, staring at him. He slashes at her waist and she leaps backwards, missing the blow. "Mother," he snarls out.

"Do you know what I had to do to keep Kensaku from sieging your home? We agreed you would not leave until the matter was settled."

He stands up only slightly abashed that he is completely nude in front of his mother. "Get out."

"You need to return," she says firmly, folding her arms like two serpents beneath her breasts.

"Mother," he warns her, "I'm 922 years old. Is there a reason you are in my bedroom?"

"I was worried about you," she says, opening the door to the garden. "Hurry up."

He pulls on a pair of sky-blue hikama with a white haori and another layer on top of that. It's only then he notices that Rin is not in the room with him. He closes his eyes, attempting to stifle his frustration with her. He would have made love to her when he woke, if she were there. "I will not hide behind you."

"You are not hiding behind me, Sesshomaru. I am merely facilitating the agreement and avoiding losing another child."

"This Sesshomaru is not a child."

"This Sesshomaru is my son and I will not lose you," she embraces him and he stiffens, unable to remember the last time his mother had held him. "He will kill you, Sesshomaru. The five that ambushed you outside the castle are just the beginning."

"How many?" Uncomfortably his arms wind around her narrow, bony shoulders.

"300 in humanoid form and two hundred dogs. Your lover, your children, you….you will not survive. Come back to my home now, so you will live to see your family again."

The door to the hallway cracks open and Rin enters the room. His mother shakes her head and leaves the garden. Sesshomaru leans against the open door, deep in thought, trying to decide what to do. His heart is here in this home, but he can't fight that many and he won't run and what is even more ridiculous is that Kensaku would risk a war, now of all times. When their blood is already being shed, this isn't the time to fight amongst themselves. "Come to bed my love," Rin says seductively taking him by the hand and he allows it. "Were you going to leave?"

"You were gone."

"Harutoga stepped on a snake and it bit his ankle and he wouldn't stop crying until I came. I needed to bandage it and give him the antidote. They're sleeping now." She loops her arm over his shoulders, kissing his lips. "Come to bed," she purrs in his ears, taking him by the hand, and then the hot summer morning overtakes the morning dew and he finds himself being drawn in and follows behind her. "They knew you were here. I told them you were sleeping," she turns around giving him a full frontal show of untying her turquoise obi, a gift he brought back for her to celebrate the birthday Kagome had made up for her. She slides it off her waist, then poses on the ball of one foot.

"I must return." He releases her hand with every intention of turning around, but kami, she is beautiful.

The plain peach colored kimono falls off her shoulders and there is nothing underneath. Her nipples are brown and puckered, her skin tanned from the summer sun and the curves of her waist. He licks his lips and falls into her embrace, throwing his armor to the side and hitching her legs around his waist, tripping over tangled silver sheets and gold pillows until she is pressed against the wall. "This must be quick." He kisses around her neck, collar bone and shoulders.

"Mmmh." Her head falls back as she grinds against his clothed shaft. She pushes back on his shoulders, ending their embrace as she drops her legs to the futon and stretches out, cat-like on all fours wagging her backside at him.

He tosses off his armor, his swords, unties his outer obi, then loosens his hikama enough to expose himself, then drops between her legs cupping her at first.

"I don't have to finish, Sesshomaru," Rin smiles back at him. "It can be about you this time."

He dips inside of her gasping, forgetting how tight, how she squeezes him like a furnace, steaming his erection. He looses his haori and inner layer to feel the heat of her skin against his chest and begins slow. One arm loops around her waist, separating her petals, exposing her bud and begins rubbing it gently. "So wet already?"

"It burns so much it hurts," she rocks her hips back and forth with him. His touch alone makes her clench against his shaft, sweetening the thrusts.

"What do you do when I'm not home," he licks the line of her back making her moan and arch her back into his mouth. He begins thrusting slowly to give her time to accept his length, then his fingers dance, intimately against her bud making her shudder.

"Oh…" He can see her muscles flexing. "I try…"

"You touch yourself?" He laps at her neck, nipping at the tender flesh.

"It isn't the same, not like this. Harder," she's already out of breath as she pleads.

He nearly chuckles watching her grip adjust as she stands on her knees, wrapping her arms backwards around his neck. He can feel her hardening and begin to drip down his member. He cups one breast, while speeding his ministrations below, while capturing her lips. Their tongues lap at each other. Together they pant as they breathe in the flames of their passion. This is what I needed…how could I? He curses his instinct, for making him think comfort could be sought somewhere else. Natsuki was entirely too selfish and self-centered to know him like Rin, to bathe his body, to cry his name, to orgasm so hard against him that his semen and her wetness drip down his front. "I love you," he breathes against her neck. "My heart."

"My love," she says quietly as he removes himself from her body. "Be safe?"

He can't answer that honestly. He wipes himself with their sheet, then exits into the hallway finding Katsumoto and Hisato leaning against the wall. "Hisato," he calls the sentinel to him.

Hisato kicks off the wall and follows. Sesshomaru paces, closing his eyes. "I have your loyalty?"

"Always."

"Even if it means defying your lover?"

"I have sworn to protect Rin and the children."

"If I don't return, if an army comes, save them. Do not stay and fight. Take them West, across the ocean, into China, take Katsumoto with you."

"Katsumoto?" Hisato mutters confused under his breath.

"There is a connection between him and Yuki. You don't see it?"

"Not yet."

"She will come of age around one hundred thirty years. See that it is he who takes her virginity, who relieves her heat." His heart aches, as if he is delivering his last will, the way his father had, when he passed.

"I will."

"Make sure she loves again…Kohaku was always fond of her. He will love her and my children."

"Sesshomaru-sama?" Hisato questions.

He swallows harshly. "Their katanas are in my study. Bakusaiga will go to Taiyomaru. You will send Tenseiga to Bukoseno for Tsukimaru. They will outlive her…you will…love my children?"

"I already love your children, Sesshomaru-sama. You have my word, on my honor and the honor of my family name, your children and your lover will be protected and I will carry out all that you have asked, even if it is against the will of Gobodo-sama."

Sesshomaru says no more. He opens the door to the children's room watching them sleep. Yuki is always in the middle. Her long silver hair is splayed around her shoulders. Taiyomaru is against her back snoring, while Harutoga is curled into her chest, with an arm around her neck. He smiles kneeling down, stroking the streaked hair of his middle son and then caressing the tip of the ear of his youngest, second to youngest. He closes his eyes, swallowing the lump in his throat. He exits out of their turquoise blue door to the garden, taking one last look at the sakura tree, the hot springs. The vision of their first pairing flashes in his vision. He sat against the tree, she straddled his lap, afraid of allowing him to enter her.

I'm scared.

It won't hurt if you accept me as I enter.

Does it hurt?

It stings.

I love you, Sesshomaru.

I love you, Rin.

Tsukimaru squirms in his arms as he sits in Sesshomaru's mother's room. She holds her meido stone in her hands. In each bedroom there is a bench that overlooks the evening sky. She has been quiet as the arguments have raged on. Another hitch of being immortal, arguments don't need to be settled immediately.

She gazes into the nothingness before them, eyes distant and pensive. "You have to, Sesshomaru. If you don't he will bring a force against your home."

"I will not," he rolls his eyes, feeling his chest tighten.

"Can you stand against an army? You have what? Five sentinels, four with tainted blood, one of them my lover, a pure-blooded puppy and a twenty year old nephew who is still beginning to understand his power."

"A hanyou brother and his Miko wife. I am not helpless in allies. You forget my other nephew married a pure-blooded wolf demon," he says firmly.

"Is this honestly what you want? Your father would not make these kinds of concessions. A true leader knows his duty to his people. The monks and the mikos are already spilling enough demon blood."

He rests his chin on the top of his son's head. Tsukimaru chews on his father's fingers and blows spit bubbles. Saliva drips down his fingers onto his lap. "I made a promise."

She rests her hand on top of his like when he was a child. "It was a stupid promise."

He sees something in her eyes he never noticed before. His hand shoots out, grabbing her chin. He turns her face to his and tilts his head ever so slightly to the side. "You were in love with him." A small light that is overcast by another rests behind the pupils of her eyes.

"Nearly a thousand years and you finally see it." She laughs, taking his hand down and holding it in her own. "I loved him very much. Do you know what it feels like to bury two lovers?"

"You were unfaithful."

"I wasn't exactly. But your father wouldn't hear it. His heart broke."

"You killed Touma's father easily."

"Not before he impregnated me and gave me a deranged child, destroying my bond to Toga. I was in heat, Sesshomaru, I wasn't thinking straight. I couldn't think straight and Toga was nowhere near here to relieve me of it and too full of pride to forgive me. Takehiko violated me and because I did not resist," her voice breaks, the first time he has ever seen her cry.

"He violated you." It causes an ache in his heart. Another flaw of their kind: if the heat isn't satiated, they will go mad with need and bed whatever male is nearest to resolve their needs. Takehiko knew that his mother was with another.

"As Touma did with yours." She breathes back the tears. "I think we have the better ending, though." She forces a smile at Tsukimaru.

He stares into the expanse beyond them. Memories of an empty childhood flit into his mind. His mother left him when he was weaned in his father's lands and rarely visited, most likely only long enough to satiate the needs of their bond, then leave. "You never visited."

"You're as sentimental as your father was." She takes the child from his arms and sits him in her lap.

"When will he learn to speak?" he asks her.

"You can't remember?" She slaps his shoulder playfully. "You were always such a serious child."

"It has been a very long time since I was a child and around my own kind," he replies quietly. "I did not like children until…" He hated them. Rin was the first child he had been around in centuries and her antics gave him warmth.

"In another five years perchance. Don't be fooled, he already follows directions. He can track by scent. His yoki is bubbling within him." She tickles the baby's chin. "At least I get to spend time with this one." Her gaze shifts again. She cups Sesshomaru's chin.

He shakes his head. "I can't do this to her."

"Does she know what you have given up to be with her? Does she appreciate that you are ostracized from your kind, that you have to end life after life for her? Or that you have nearly died on many occasions to ensure her life?" Gobodo-sama inquires. "Without that barrier, what you do, allowing mixed relationships in your village, she would be dead. You are the laughing stock of our kind, Sesshomaru. Does she appreciate that?"

"I don't know," the words come out silently. There are times he feels like she doesn't, that the expectation is that he should constantly be the giver, the provider. "It is not a conversation we have had. I…have not shared those details with her. I bear the shame alone. I cannot do this to her again."

"Then don't tell her. Do you think Izayoi knew of me? It wasn't until after his death that your existence was made known because you wanted that ridiculous katana that belonged to your father." She points out the window. "Shooting star."

He smiles. "You used to tell me to make a wish. I wished for you to be near me," he holds her hand in his. There were moments after particularly difficult sparring sessions, when his body was bruised and bleeding, that he missed his mother's embrace. Or times when he felt alone despite the other children. Thoughts he would never voice, the ones he kept hidden and learned to bury with the rest of his emotions.

"She's made you soft," she hisses at him, squeezing his fingers. "But she brought us closer together. A time will come when you will regret spilling the blood of your own kind so easily Sesshomaru. Something dark is brewing. Even I can feel it from up here."

"Do you know what it is?"

"If I did, I would try to stop it. My skin has been crawling since before the rumors began. The Miko, the woman out of time, Sesshomaru, do we exist in her time?"

"Is that what this is about?" Take care of them? Please? An odd request when in the past Kagome said he did not exist. He sensed no lie when she said it, but then why would she ask?

"Make your choice, Sesshomaru," she says quietly. "Do you remember the game we played when you were a child?" She pointed at one of the stars. "The brightest."

He pointed at another. "The oldest."

She found one that was higher in the sky. "The wisest."

He searched for another that rest near a brilliantly lit star. "The son."

"The mother." She rests her head against his shoulder pointing to the brightest light.

"Did you really forget your name?"

"Taka," she nudges his shoulder. "But not even Hisato knows that."

"How old are you?"

"I did forget that. I have seen many centuries, many lifetimes. I knew your father when he was a boy and his father before him and the one before that…your sister would be over three thousand years old now. You know what it's like to lose a child during pregnancy, Sesshomaru, but not during life. The pain is worse, when you've seen them worship the ground you walk on like Yuki, or when they can't sleep unless you tell them a story like Taiyomaru, or when you share the same quiet space for hours like Harutoga. If his forces attack your home, are you ready to bury Yuki, Harutoga and Taiyomaru? They would not survive and he would hunt them to the ends of the earth."

He snarls frustrated. He knows she is right. "What does he want?"

"We settled on you showing the same respect to Natsuki as you did to Rin. You will spend a week in seclusion in your room here. No need to travel to the Villa, and if the time comes and our kind needs shelter, you will provide it freely."

"I would have provided that without this," he closes his eyes and exhales, his chest cramping. How will I resist her for a week in the same space? Another lie, more secrets. He must protect Rin. He would not survive a fight against an army and if his life was taken, Rin would forever be in peril, never finding peace. She would lose the protection he had afforded her.

"Your father raised you to pick your battles carefully, Sesshomaru." She grabs his left arm. "You lost this from arrogance and overconfidence. If you push Kensaku, you will lose more than an arm."

He purses his lips. "Send her to my room," he rests his forehead in his palm. "Rin will not know of this." He pauses deep in thought, remembering Taiyomaru's acts of taking pain from Rin and healing Yuki's back. "Mother, is it possible for a hanyou to be able to heal others?"

"You're asking about Taiyomaru," she grins proudly standing up, bouncing Tsukimaru on her hip. "A child made by the purest and the most complete love is more than a hanyou, but not quite like us. He is not using his yoki to heal, rather manipulating what is already is there."

"He said my light was inside of Rin, that I asked him to soothe her pain before I came. His intrusion felt... foreign, wrong."

"You'll get used to it, it was just new. He doesn't understand yet, that it's your yoki he can feel and use to heal his mother, and his brother and sister, maybe even you."

"He cannot heal others?"

"No. It's your yoki he can manipulate."

"Transformation?"

"It will be the same as it is for any hanyou and equally as dangerous, if not more so for him. You saw how feral Hisato was in that state, it will be worse for Taiyomaru. If he ever reaches that state, you may not be able to bring him back."

"I'd have to kill him?" He slams his hand against the door, growling.

"You'd have to kill him, until he is old enough to wield a katana." She approaches him and sets a palm on his shoulder. "You're doing the right thing, Sesshomaru. There is no land that would be safe, Kensaku would hunt your family down until they were dead. It's one week, versus giving your family the rest of their lives."

"He will abandon any further attempts to force her into our lives?"

"Yes."

His breath speeds. "I can't resist for a week, you know this."

"She is also your lover. You may love Rin, but you are honor-bound to Natsuki equally. He isn't asking you to love his daughter, simply to honor our traditions. This isn't infidelity, Sesshomaru, it's nurturing what should have been nurtured in the first place had this been done properly."

"Properly?" He claws his own forehead. "No matter what I choose I will hurt Rin. If I defy Kensaku, I risk their deaths, I end my life, leaving her a widow, if I do this…"

"She won't know. You needn't tell her."

"If I kill him?"

"His son is set to inherit his land and title. His lover is vicious and vindictive. Sesshomaru, you are making the right choice."

Why doesn't it feel right?


	29. Interlude- VIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taka reconnects with her siblings

**Interlude VIII**

_Seconds before, her hands were on his jaw, but then she felt his chin tense, his lips shivered against her fingertips. They were cracked, dry and there was something familiar about them. Just as the convulsions took him, she felt his body slide down hers, then an impact against the bed shook her and the air changed. It became static, fire-like and she saw flames of white and red shooting off the floor, covering the outline of what looked like a man on the floor. She tries getting off the bed to go to the man, but is stopped by Lucy, tugging on the back of her gown to make her stop._

Taka watches in horror as the convulsions eat her father alive. She used to be able to smell them before they happened. He would flush in a layer of sweat that smelled like pine after the summer rains fell and humidity and of course the acid and blood that he often threw up. There were times she scented it from the other end of the castle and was able to get the injection in before he landed on the ground convulsing. This time it happened too quickly, from the moment she could smell it coming. He fell to the floor a second later, hitting his head on the way down. _Chichiue, Chichiue!_ she screams at him, trying to rouse his senses. She barks hoping to get the attention of those outside the office. She can smell them, the partly demon children of her Uncle. _Chichiue!_

She leaps off the bed and stops short of transforming to force his arm down as two girls enter the room. One she recognizes by her silver hair and the pathetic attempt at covering the fuzzy ears on her head. But before she can do anything, one of the nurses has her leash and is tugging her out the door, while two more are finishing packing Nina's nose and then leading her out of the room into one of the regular exam rooms. Taka attempts to bolt for the door to the procedure room only to be grabbed by the nurse and hauled off the ground. "If you want to stay you'll have to calm down," the woman says in Japanese.

Taka pants hard, terrified. She can feel the rays of his yoki flashing out. If this had been five hundred years before it would have flamed like a beacon, alerting every monk in a fifty mile radius to his location. She follows with her tail between her legs to the exam room, hearing the commotion in the procedure room. They can't get a line, he's too strong, no one can get an arm down, the two girls are crying.

Taka paces circles in the exam room while the nurses finish pressurizing Nina's nose. Nina is signing in the air, using full signs instead of finger signs. She's panicked and scared. _Why did he fall? What was the light? What's going on? I don't understand._

Taka comes out of her worried haze remembering she has another job to do. She leaps onto the examination table and curls into Nina's lap, licking her chin to get her attention. Nina takes her paw. _Something's wrong, he's hurting. There's fire flying off his body. He's going to die, they don't know what to do._

Nina's skin is pasty white from the blood loss and she wavers. The nurses catch her and help her lay on her side. They try to explain to her what's happening only for her to shake her head. Nina can't understand them with their accents, it's too hard. They tell each other to go get her mother but Nina's fingers move like lightning against Taka's paw. _I'm so scared. I don't feel good. What's going on? Why did they stop? I should have died already?_

 _Oh, quiet little one,_ Taka licks her face again. _I told you I won't let you die. If only I had Tsuki's blood. I hope you're dazed enough for this._

The other nurse hooks up a bag to Nina's port-a-cath that reads platelets.

Taka leaps off the bed, transforming, and picks up Nina's hand. _You're fine. The bleeding stopped. The doctor will be back in soon._

_Who are you?_

_Your friend._ Taka leans over and kisses Nina's forehead, stroking her hair. She runs to the door, listening. There are feet running this way and that. She cracks the door to see the procedure room at the end of the hall. "He's not answering!" one of the girls cries. _Tsukimaru,_ Taka knows who they are calling, he lives closer than Taiyomaru. She ducks back into the room, digging her cell phone out of her pocket. "Fuck, you better answer!" she grips the countertop leaving indentations with her claws. The line clicks on.

"Taka?"

"Tsuki, listen to me, it's Chichiue, it's bad this time—"

"Taka wait where—"

"For once you shut up! Right now Tsuki! And listen to me! This is all your fault! Everything is your fault!" she screams, pained into the phone. "I hate you! And I hate myself for what you made me do!"

At first there is silence on the other end of the line. "I'm listening," he says.

"Mayumi and Izayoi are trying to call you. Answer them, you didn't hear it from me. Chichiue is convulsing, he can't stop. He's in the office and if you say it was me who said something I swear on his honor that I will kill you."

"We both know you can't."

"Then Taiyomaru and Harutoga and Yuki will help me." She breathes fitfully. "Answer the goddamn phone and help Chichiue before he dies!" Footsteps coming make her stash her phone and transform back into Lucy, the loveable white dog. She jumps onto the exam table, resting her head in Nina's lap.

Hanna comes in with Dr. sits in the swivel chair while Hannah rushes to Nina's side. "Good girl, Lucy," she takes a treat from her bag and feeds Taka.

 _These taste like shit._ Taka takes it and kisses Hannah.

"I don't understand, what's going on?" Hannah asks Dr. Yamamoto.

He's an odd man, slightly short and squat, with a round face and salt and pepper hair. "There's an issue with the treatment."

_Of course he doesn't say Chichiue is dying. Kami, Chichiue, I'm so sorry._

"The dog looks very sad," Dr. Yamamoto comments.

Hannah stares at Lucy petting her. "What's wrong girl?"

Taka snuggles into the hand feeling pathetic, unloved, and like a child again. _Chichiue…please…_

"We flew across the globe to have this treatment. She's dying," Hannah argues, stroking Nina's hair.

"I'm aware of that. There was a complication with one of our medical staff we're caring for now. Once it's handled, I'll be back to discuss treatment for Nina."

 _What do you mean?_ Taka thinks nervously. _Give it to her…_

_She knows the warm embrace of Hannah and the smell of the soap she uses to wash herself. She recognizes her hand as it comes into her palms, telling her that the treatment was delayed and they had an emergency with one of their staff. Nina nods weakly, feeling so very tired from the loss of blood. She curls into Hannah's lap and drifts to sleep, to darkness. to dreams._

_He's come home from a long absence, the first time he left after they had their second baby. The baby isn't quite like the first. He has white hair with a black streak down one of his ears. He spent three weeks at home with her, loving her, holding her and playing with their daughter. He lands and as always the first person he approaches is her. He kisses her so deeply she sees stars and then leans his mouth against her ear. "You're still bleeding, my heart."_

" _It will end soon, my love." She presses her lips into his and their tongues tangle._

" _Pain?"_

" _Dull."_

" _My warrior," he nuzzles her nose affectionately._

" _Chichiue!" The girl calls him, pouncing into his arms. "Can we play hide and seek?"_

" _Go on, I need to nurse." She turns from him._

" _I will use my nose!" the little girl squeals._

_She feels like the luckiest woman alive, to be loved so whole and so completely._

Hannah and Nina fall asleep together and Taka takes it as her cue to leave the room. She bites the handle, forcing the door open, and follows her ears. The first stop is the procedure room where she sees her father alone, hooked up to a large bag of blood. She knows that smell, Taiyomaru and Tsukimaru's combined blood. His eyes are tightly shut, gaunt, making him look haunted. His markings, ears and mokomoko are visible."Taka?"

Taka nearly peels out of her own fur to see Harutoga standing next to her. She hadn't been paying attention to her surroundings. _Is he going to be okay?_

Harutoga kneels down and kisses her nose. "No…"

_What about Nina?_

Harutoga bites his lower lip and exhales heavily. "Yamamoto-sama refuses to give the treatment until he speaks to Chichiue. He said it's unethical to use demon blood any longer. He's fighting with your mother right now. She's threatening to destroy the building."

_Don't tell her I'm here. She'll make me go back, she'll lock me in the castle again._

"Mask your scent, she's so busy with Chichiue she isn't thinking of anything else. Show me the girl."

Taka nods and leads Harutoga back to Nina and Hannah as they sleep. Harutoga steps in behind her, opening his mouth in shock. "She looks just like Ka-san." Harutoga touches Nina's head and then leans over her, sniffing her hair. "And smells like her too. We missed her death. Chichiue sent messengers. He said it happened quickly and then…" Harutoga stops.

_It's not my fault you know…she was in heat, she needed him too. Why can't it be that he could take care of both of them? Why does it have to be like this? He loved her, you know that. I didn't ask to be conceived after her death and he was honor-bound to Haha-ue. He would have humiliated himself not to give her what she needed. Tsuki said it was awful, the way he left her in heat for months._

"Maybe it's anger. She destroyed part of my childhood," Harutoga sits down on the floor.

_But you love both of your lovers…what if you had met them at the same time?_

"I could resist because I'm hanyou."

_He couldn't. She has their memories, Harutoga. Please, make them treat her. Make them give her the medicine. She doesn't deserve to die again, not like this. I've been using my blood, making her drink it at night, but it's not like Tsuki's._

"I'll see what I can do. Stay out of sight, or your mother will find you."

Waves of heat hit Taka's nose and she waits to see how long it takes Harutoga to smell it too. Nina smells like a hot summer morning and to anyone else, she probably sounds like she is in pain, the way she is moaning quietly.

"Is she dreaming?" Harutoga asks dumbfounded.

_About fucking Chichiue? Yep._

"I'm going now."

Taka runs circles around his feet to stop him. _Why? You don't want to know what he can do with his tongue? Or that his favorite position was on all fours, or that she liked it best when he sucked on her clit?_

"Taka!" he hisses through clenched teeth.

 _Why should I be the only one that has to get mental pictures of your mother and Chichiue?_ She leaps onto the exam table to curl up next to Nina and Hannah. _At least it isn't my mother. Yours screamed like a cat. Oh Sesshomaru! Sesshomaru! Oh oh! Fuck me! Yes!_

Harutoga covers his mouth to hide his laughter. _Bye Taka._

 _Bye Ni-san,_ she says.

She waits for the door to close again then transforms. They left Nina hooked up to platelets. She forces the cabinet doors open, melting the locks until she finds a syringe. She removes the safety and flexes her arm, forcing a vein out and removes her own blood. _I hope this helps,_ she thinks as she injects it into Nina's central line. _Please, hang on… just a little longer._

_His hands run up her body, from behind, holding her breasts, twirling her nipples. They slide down her sides, to run between her legs, before his middle finger finds her sweet spot. It's not just his touch that feels so at home, it's him, what he says, the way he cares for her needs, the way he loves her. Their bodies fold together like two pieces of the same puzzle and she pants beneath him as he pumps inside of her._

_What's your name? Who are you? Why do I always dream about you?_

_My heart…_

_My love…_


	30. Mayumi-present III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natsuki comes to save the day

**Mayumi-present**

She watches him convulse through a crack in the door. No sooner does her uncle hit the floor than blood blooms from his throat, coating the tiles in red. "This isn't epilepsy," Yamamoto-sama says as he lands on his knees next to her convulsing Uncle.

Sesshomaru's fists are balled so tightly that he cuts into his own palms with his claws. Mayumi bites the inside of her cheek. Izayoi runs in with another needle filled with medicine. It's never been this bad before. He's choking on his own blood. For the first time, he can't control his transformation. Mayumi sees that his mokomoko is becoming visible. The power of the tremors and the sweat are washing off the makeup he uses to cover his stripes. His ears have fallen out of their hiding place. "Call Tsukimaru, quickly. If he doesn't answer, call Taiyomaru," Izayoi hands Mayumi a cell phone.

She can't take her eyes off him. The patient they were working on, with white eyes that are scarred around the edges is led from the room with her dog who won't stop barking.

"Now!" Izayoi yells at her.

Her fingers tremble as she unlocks the cellphone and brings up Tsukimaru's number. "Please answer…" she cries, finally entering the room.

"What is this?" Yamamoto-sama asks Izayoi.

The Mokomoko is visible, the fangs, the pointed ears and the markings. Izayoi tries getting the needle in, but this time she can't. He's shaking too hard for her to hit the neck vein.

The nurses rush into the room. There are four of them there helping in the office, all females. They slide on their knees through the blood that her Uncle chokes on. His white hair is now half crimson and he can't breathe. "Get me suction," one of the nurses is thrown off him as she tries to hold him down. It takes three just to pin one shoulder down and keep his neck still so they can suction the blood from his throat.

"He's not answering!" Mayumi cries to her sister. She tries Taiyomaru but it also goes straight to voicemail.

"Natsuki doesn't have a phone," Izayoi takes the phone and texts Tsukimaru, she hands the phone back. Their feet are covered in blood.

"Dilantin," Yamamoto-sama calls to Yoshi.

The younger doctor rummages through a cabinet searching for the drug. Mayumi can't move. She kneels down next to Sesshomaru. "Send for her, Ojisama? Please? If you can hear me, call her!" Natsuki can help when it's this bad, but she hates phones and computers. She refuses to use them, but their bond allows her to somewhat control his body.

Yoshi fills a needle and just as he is about to try to stick it into her Uncle's skin, Izayoi can be quiet no longer.

"No!" the elder sister screams at them while they hold her uncle down by the shoulders. "It's not epilepsy," she sobs as she removes her scarf from her head, bearing pointed ears as proof they have not been honest about themselves. They wiggle lightly to prove they are real and not just decoration. "He's not human…It's from a disease he was infected with five hundred years ago. He's a dog demon. He's in the end stages of the symptoms." The phone finally starts ringing. She throws it to Mayumi. "He's dying…"

The room stops and all becomes quiet. Yoshi drops the needle and then picks it up, unsure what to do. Izayoi blocks them from getting any closer to Sesshomaru, her ears drooping on the top of her head. "He's dying, this medicine won't help him. He needs his…um…wife," she snivels and wipes her tears. "And the blood of his children."

His mouth is foaming, he's choking. The vein in his neck is bulging and his eyes are changing from gold to red.

Mayumi answers the phone. "Tsukimaru," Mayumi wipes her nose. She's covered in her Uncle's blood. "He's sick. He won't stop throwing up. They can't…" she puts the phone on speaker.

"Izayoi, can you start an IV?" Tsukimaru asks, his voice tinged with pain.

"I can try," Izayoi says. "Sit on him," she tells the doctors and nurses. "You don't understand, it takes all four of his children-" she is cut off by a rush of energy and flash of white light coming into the room.

Mayumi knows the yoki well. Natsuki forms in front of them. "You idiot," she says to Sesshomaru as she kneels by his chest. "Get off him now." She has never made an effort to hide her form, not even when she visits the land. She is dressed in regal Japanese robes, a gold kimono, red and then another gold layer. Her hair is tied in an intricate weave of combs and jewels. Her mokomokai are wrapped over her arms.

"Who are you?" Yoshi demands.

"Shut up," Natsuki barks, weaving her fingers through Sesshomaru's hair and resting her forehead against his. "Calm down, dear one," she mutters against his skin. The yoki rises again, this time from his and from hers. Mayumi can almost see it dancing together. The tremors calm, "Now," Natsuki instructs them.

Izayoi comes in with an IV kit and starts the line in his left arm. "Mayumi, go get Tsukimaru's blood from the fridge. You know which one it is. Natsuki, we don't have Taiyomaru's," she says as Mayumi runs out of the room.

Now they're done for, and Mayumi knows it. The doctors will know that he's been using youkai blood. "I used the emergency phone and 'texted' Taiyomaru before I came. He'll be here soon."

"What's going on?" Yamamoto-sama asks, stunned.

"Shut up," Natsuki barks at him.

Mayumi rushes out of the room but is followed by Yamamoto-sama. She swallows hard as she searches through the bags of blood. She knows which one is her cousin's. It's labeled carefully. She needs the bag that isn't used for their treatments.

"What is going on?" The doctor grabs her by the arm and pins her against the wall. "What is this? Are you human?"

"Mostly," Mayumi tries to push his arm off, "and then not," she lets her blades loose against his skin, enough to graze but not cut.

He curses, sucking on his thumb. "What are you?"

"A quarter dog-demon…my father is a hanyou. He'll start convulsing again if I don't give this to him," she holds up the large bag of blood. "Please?" her voice breaks.

"Come on," he leads her back into the room. "You have a lot of explaining to do," he says as he opens the door for Mayumi.

The nurses have lifted his body onto the stretcher and secured the IV line. Mayumi hands them the bag of Tsukimaru's blood. They connect the bag to the line in his arm and then turn to face a staff that cannot believe what they are seeing. Mayumi lifts up Sesshomaru's hand and squeezes his palm. "Ojisama?" she whispers helplessly. "Please don't die."


	31. Natsuki-Past III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru and Natsuki are forced to spend a week in seclusion together.

**Natsuki-past**

She walks nervously up the stairs to his room. She is housed in the same corridor as Gobodo-sama, while another one with multiple levels is reserved for Sesshomaru. Her feet want to falter beneath her as she takes one step and then another. Her fingers glide along the golden twisting banister as she finds herself just paces from his shut door. The same little girl with black braids going down her back reaches for their son, as Natsuki enters. "I just fed him," she says to the child who waves Tsukimaru's hand at her while they leave.

Before she can, he opens the doors. He's dressed in a simple white Kimono that is long and covers his knees. His legs are covered in the same hikama. He holds his hand out, motioning her inside. A table has been set by the window with two chairs, hot water, and delicacies that newly-bonded are typically fed. The smell of the raw flesh and blood makes her drool slightly. She licks the side of her mouth as she follows him to the table. "Why did you agree to this?" she asks as she sits down. "These chairs are so odd."

"Mother spent time in the west many centuries ago. She liked sitting in chairs rather than on the floor and copied their style," he pours himself a cup of hot water and begins eating the deer meat in front of him. "For peace, I agreed to this."

"So then we will…" the question is left hanging. The mere thought of disrobing him is making her hot in places she has spent five years trying to forget about. She's learned to care for her own needs, but nothing feels like what he has done to her before.

"No. I will rest on the bench, you will sleep in the bed. That should be enough for your body to carry my scent. We will share meals and perhaps speak. I will not make love to you." He lifts another chunky piece of meat up as blood drips down his fingers. The sky is bright and there are thick, fluffy white clouds circling around the castle. A guard is by the outside door should he decide they need something and a maid will be prepared to answer all their requests.

"You think we can both resist for the next week?" Natsuki chuckles to herself. "As if you don't already feel it bubbling between us."

"I do, and we will ignore it. Keep your yoki to yourself." He drinks the hot water.

"You're stupid for agreeing to this," she scoffs at him, finally beginning to fill her own plate. "My father is a pompous fool. You should just kill him."

"No," he shakes his head. "The bloodshed wouldn't stop there. If I'm not mistaken, you are not set to inherit your father's army, your brother is."

"Shouju." She smiles thinking of the little boy. "Of course, Haha-ue would be outraged and order you and your family killed if you did."

"Enough blood is being spilled below." He closes his eyes breathing heavily. "How do you do this?"

"Your mother is a good teacher. Come with me." She takes his hand, and fire dances between their fingertips. She sits down seiza style on the floor with him across from her. "Put your hands in your lap and breathe deeply. Focus on Rin."

"What?" he balks.

"It helps to focus on the one thing that brings you the most happiness. I think about Tsukimaru, his laugh, his smile, the way his nose wrinkles when he's angry. At first it was difficult, my instincts wanted to return to you. But think about her, every detail, from the top of her head, down to her toes. Scars?"

"Her stomach was marred by Touma's halberd, a scar over her left hip from an ogre. Her back is covered in them from fighting a bear demon—"

"I don't need to know all of them." Natsuki cuts him off, annoyed. _As if he knows my body so well._ "Then breathe in and out and focus on her, her scent, her hair, her fingers." Her eyes track down his body, seeing a bulge in his pants. _Oh he's thinking of her alright…_ He smells like hot tree sap and honey bees. She pinches her nose and starts pacing on the other end of the room to ignore it and when that doesn't help she goes into his washroom, closing and locking the door behind her, wetting a washcloth, then putting it over her nose to stop from smelling him. _I hate you, Chichiue…_

* * *

For two days they managed to avoid physical contact. They shared meals and spoke quietly or sat in silence. Tsukimaru came and went as he was hungry, always brought by the same little girl with long black braids who was happy to take him. "Who is she?" Sesshomaru asks on the third afternoon as the little girl tickles his son's sides as she takes him.

The door closes and Natsuki rolls over in the bed, righting her kimono where she had just finished nursing their baby. "Reiko. She's under the care of your mother."

"She's part human."

"A small part. Her parents are dead, or so I've been told. She's in her thirties and loves Tsukimaru. She watches him for me so I can have some time alone. He loves her." Natsuki grins watching Sesshomaru's face wrinkle in concern. "Is it that hard for you to be away from him?"

"I was never away this often from my other children." He resumes his position by the bench staring at the clouds.

The yearnings are getting worse and they both know it. Natsuki feels his yoki reaching out to hers, tying itself around her, beckoning her to come sit with him, but she refuses.

* * *

By the fourth day, Natsuki aches terribly. Every inch of her body is on fire, especially between her legs. She wants so desperately to feel his touch. He's sweating just as badly in the corner of the room, panting at the struggle to restrain himself. Natsuki is covered in sweat as she finishes feeding their son. She rises up quickly, passing him to a servant outside the door, then shuts it, sliding down the wall and folding herself in around her knees. "I hate you for this," her voice trembles as she speaks. "I hate you."

Sesshomaru is just as shaky when he replies, "I did not ask you to approach me that day in the snow."

"I didn't know that your brother was a liar!"

"Because you had no self-control."

"Because you debased yourself with a human!"

"A HUMAN I LOVE!" he bellows furiously.

"A human who is my friend, and if we do this now?" Natsuki starts crying. The tears run down her cheeks, onto her knees. "We promised each other. I promised."

Sesshomaru begins laughing darkly, curled into his own knees. "What promise?"

"To not make enemies out of our children." Natsuki rubs her arms furious to feel something besides the burn of her yoki. "She told me…what you did to Inuyasha. We agreed."

"You've been to my home when I'm not there for the last five years."

There's no point in denying it. "After I saved her from the ogre, she sought me out in the palace and we agreed that I would not do this to her again. She forgave me and asked me to visit. You know how Taiyomaru loves Tsukimaru. When he was a baby, he wouldn't stop crying and she was so tired. I came and let them cuddle, and she would sleep while I took care of both children."

Sesshomaru rubs his eyes. Natsuki feels his annoyance, but also the gratitude behind it. "He was a very difficult baby." He smacks his head against the wall, his chest rising and falling heavily. "He still does not sleep when I am not home."

"I know," Natsuki finally uncovers her eyes from her knees. "We still visit. Now he takes Tsukimaru to a tree or to bed and cuddles him to sleep. They are very close," she says proudly.

Sesshomaru rises off the windowsill and saunters over to Natsuki, sitting down next to her. He holds her hands in his and says quietly, "you are also mine."

"No," she shakes her head, with tears running down her eyes. "Rin is my friend…my only friend, the mother of my son's siblings. Please?"

He picks her lips up and she can't resist, the pain of separation and being so closely cordoned together is taking over. She holds his face as if it is her life, and returns the passion that he gives her. "You are also mine," he says firmly, pressing his mouth into hers again. "You need not tell her."

"Please?" Natsuki tries to force her body to calm itself, but it's no use. "I don't want to betray her."

Sesshomaru pulls her into his body, holding her. "We cannot resist another three days."

"Then only once and no more? Please? I love your human."

He laughs stroking her back. "Once and no more."

"Don't tell her you know I come. She doesn't want to upset you."

"I will say nothing." He pushes back the layers of her kimonos and as he does, relief washes through her. She can't resist, but if they give in once, just this once, what harm could it do?

* * *

Once became twice, and then three times, and on the seventh day, hours before they were due to be released, Natsuki rests comfortable against his chest while he plays with the ends of her hair. She can feel his guilt, his disgust with himself for being unable to resist, and she feels it too. "Why is it always like this?" she asks, tiredly, finding comfort against his skin.

"Because you chose not to wait," he answers plainly, emotionlessly.

"Did you want more than one?"

"Before I met her?"

Natsuki nods. She was much younger then, those decades ago. She rises with the intake of his breath, trying to comfort the both of them. "I assumed I would have many. I did not know love then, loyalty."

Natsuki bites the inside of her lips. "I dreamed of being the one you would love the most, but then this?" She flicks a tear from her eyes.

"Time will tell, sweet one," he presses his yoki into her, drops of comfort and warmth, but the guilt remains. "This will not happen again."

 _I hate you, Chichiue,_ she thinks bitterly. _What should be joyous is filled with guilt._


	32. Rin-Past V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru returns to Rin, different than he was before.

**Rin-past**

Summer is at its zenith and she sweats while tilling the soil of the garden. Her turquoise kimono is hiked over her knees while Harutoga plucks weeds next to her. Seeing her son makes her smile and she wonders where Yuki and Taiyomaru are. Raising a hand to shield her eyes, she searches through the village for them. As if on cue Hisato says from the side, "Katsumoto is with them."

With the question answered, she goes back to her work. The sun is hot against her skin, and she knows that soon they'll have to go inside to escape it. "Look at this one, Ka-san," Harutoga holds up the flower from one of the weeds. "Why do weeds grow flowers?"

"Why do flowers grow on weeds?" she counters and lifts the final bit of soil out of the way.

"Mmh?" He taps his chin. "Maybe to remind us that beauty is everywhere?"

"I like that," Rin says and goes to the hut to get the seeds. They are adding to their melon patch, because there are more children in the village, which means more mouths to feed and all the families love the sweet fruit. She hefts the bag of seeds over her shoulders and starts planting and covering them while Harutoga walks behind her with a bucket of water.

"Why do we work in the fields? The other children say that you and Chichiue are a Lord and Lady and we shouldn't have to," Harutoga asks while pouring water where she has planted.

"You don't know what hunger feels like, Harutoga," Rin says as she moves along, covering the seeds with dirt. "You don't know famine or war."

He shakes his head.

"It's because of the sacrifices Chichiue makes for us that we have this village and food," she says proudly. "We don't have to live in fear."

The child nods, and she can tell his mind is still spinning with thoughts. "Are you really a princess?"

Rin bursts out laughing along with Hisato. "No. You know how Chichiue found me."

"You found him," Harutoga corrects her. "But then why are you a Lady?"

"Because Chichiue is a Lord."

"Did you get married like Sota?"

"No."

"But then you aren't married! Obasan says you have to be married before you have children!"

Hisato laughs harder and Rin tries not to smear mud on her mouth at her son's antics. "Harutoga, when a pureblooded dog demon bonds a human, that is like a human marriage. I chose to respect Chichiue's customs. He didn't want a marriage," she says, remembering the day by the sakura tree, how he held her, how he made love to her. She licks her lips, wishing he was there now.

"You smell funny, Ka-san." Harutoga runs up to her and touches her forehead. "Are you sick? You smell hot."

Hisato bursts out even louder laughing, trying to regain his stoic composure.

"Hisato, stop laughing!" Rin stomps her foot.

"Are you going to explain that smell, Rin-sama?" He's vibrating and wiping his eyes.

"You smell like a hot summer morning. Why did it change?" Harutoga's nose circles his mother's stomach.

Instead Rin picks up a piece of dirt and flings it at Hisato, who leaps out of the way. She growls at both of them.

"Rin!" A screeching voice comes from behind Rin.

She grins, knowing who is emitting such a high pitched shriek. Jaken runs, nearly tripping on Nintojo, landing on his face and skidding through the freshly tilled soil. "He's coming home!" The urchin throws her a scroll.

She unrolls it with a smile. "Chichiue is coming home!" She hugs Harutoga excitedly, but then she notices the sudden cessation of Hisato's laughter and the seriousness of his expression. "Why do I get the feeling that you know what's going on up there?" Rin rounds on him.

"I don't," and she can't help but notice something strange in his voice when he says that.

"Whatever it is…Harutoga, go find your brother and sister. We'll prepare to meet Chichiue." Rin smiles, feeling her cheeks pinch and burn. After a month of not having Sesshomaru home, she starts jogging back to their home with the excitement of a child but the desire of a woman.

* * *

Months before she had started lining up the servants for his return. They flank the walkway in two lines and she stands at the end with the children freshly bathed, twirling her thumbs. He said he would come as the sun began to set and in nearly thirteen years he has never been late. Rin grins, pacing back and forth. He hasn't had to be gone this long since Yuki was eight.

The blue skies begin to change into bright orange and pink, casting shadows of blue and purple on their ivory white house. She sees the streak of white light flying across the sky, then forming a bulb of white light in front of her. As always, his eyes are on her and her alone. The children break rank even though they've been warned not to. "Chichiue!" they cry, running to him. Taiyomaru makes it first, flying into his father's arms and for a moment Rin does a double take, shaking off what she just saw as luck and a smooth jump. _He didn't just fly…hanyous can't fly._

Yuki smashes her face into Sesshomaru's ribs and Harutoga holds his father's hand. At the end Rin as he walks up to Rin, she's forced to kiss him through the children and he whispers in her ear, "Taiyomaru's asleep."

Rin rolls her eyes as she follows Sesshomaru into the house and the servants are dismissed. He glides, striding through the public dining hall, into the private corridor and then past his study, their private dining hall and at last to the children's room.

Rin can't help but chuckle at the state of Taiyomaru. He doesn't sleep when his father isn't home and literally falls asleep the moment his head hit's his father's shoulders. One day he smashed his nose into Sesshomaru's armor and spent an hour crying from pain. He's tucked into bed, tearing a piece of his father's kimono on the way down that he stuffs against his nose. "Did he sleep?" Sesshomaru strokes their son's long black hair with a look of consternation.

"Does he ever sleep when you are not home?"

Sesshomaru's eyes seem far and distant as he tucks his son in.

"Are you okay, my love?" She piles his hair over his shoulder and begins massaging his neck. He leans into her hands, exhaling, his muscles relaxing under her touch.

"Yuki, Harutoga." He brushes her hands off and it's only then Rin sees the lines around his eyes, the new creases that weren't there before. She had often wondered if she would ever see him age and he no longer looked like a teenager.

"Was it that bad?" she questions him.

"It was what it was," he says dismissively, and she feels her heart ache. _What are you hiding from me?_

She bites her lower lip and leaves the room, avoiding crying in front of him, if he only knew how hard it was for her when he was gone. She finds herself in the private dining room, flopping onto one of the chairs, wiping her eyes. Suddenly Akari is in the room with a pot of mint tea and two cups. "You look like you needed it."

Rin sputters through her tears, "He's so distant."

"Men," Akari agrees, pouring them both cups and joining her. "Hineko is like that at times. Or he was before we came here. He would go off on some adventure or leave me with the children, and there were times he came back in a foul mood."

Rin bites down on her finger, picking up a napkin and blotting her eyes. "I just want to help him….support him. But it hurts when he's like this."

"I'm sorry," Akari sits down next to her and hugs her shoulders. "He loves you."

"I know."

"Men are idiots, even when they are in love."

Rin starts laughing and then thinks about the demon she saw in the future. _What happens to you my love that does this to you?_ Sesshomaru's face in the future was more lined, he was more slight, his skin paler but his affect much softer than she was used to seeing. She closes her eyes, rubbing her temples. "Do you think he saw her up there?"

Akari bites her bottom lip, making her fangs more prominent. "I would be shocked if he didn't. I've heard the palace is large, but I would assume he did."

Rin flops her head onto the table. "As if he would tell me."

"He's afraid of losing you again," Akari refills her cup and Rin's. "The last time you knew he was with her, you left and took his children."

"I wouldn't do it again. I promised I wouldn't and I know about her now and oddly she and I get along."

"He doesn't know that," Akari says defensively, "any of that. You have no idea how we have to scrub to get her smell out before he returns."

"Would you be okay with Hineko having two?"

"As long as I remained the head-wife and slept in his bed more often than not?"

"I don't understand youkai!"

Akari snorts. "As if a human Lord wouldn't have done the same thing."

"Kohaku wouldn't have-" She covers her mouth, shocked at her own statement. "I did not just say that."

"Kohaku?" Akari gets a sly grin on her face and scoots forward. "Do tell… who was he?"

"Is he?" Rin comes closer unsure of how close her lover is. "I can't believe I'm talking about this. So when I was eight and Sesshomaru found me, for nearly a year it was just me with him. Kohaku is three years older than me. He was being held prisoner by Naraku, I told you about him. After he broke free of Naraku's mind control, he went to be with Kikyo. But one day he was being chased by Byakuya, a bunshin of Naraku, and Sesshomaru-sama saved him. Kohaku traveled with us until Naraku was destroyed.

"After that, well it was too hard for him to be in the village with his sister. He left almost immediately to find another village of slayers to train with but he came and visited often. He helped me learn to fight, stamina and tumbling. He had a crush on my best friend Satsu, but after she was killed, we kind of turned to each other for comfort. I was fifteen and I knew shortly after that how precious life was. I wanted Sesshomaru, I wanted him so badly…but I knew how he felt about relationships with humans, so one day Kohaku and I were swimming in the lake by the village in the middle of the night and he kissed me. It got very hot from there," she blushes. "He was the first person to, you know, put their fingers inside me. We started courting and right around the night, literally the night we were probably going to make love, Sesshomaru caught us."

"Oh kami," Akari's face flops against the table. "I bet he wanted to kill Kohaku."

"He grabbed me and," her eyes roll into the back of her head. "What I thought would happen with Kohaku felt nothing like what Sesshomaru did that night. I only knew a year later that he was trying to bond me."

"Did you love Kohaku?" Akari asks with a sparkle in her eye.

"Not like I love Sesshomaru. I loved him, I cared about Kohaku, but it wasn't like this. We turned to each other for comfort, friendship, connection. We settled. _She_ loves him," Rin says defeated. "I know she does."

" _She's_ a selfish child," Akari hisses.

"It's not her fault. She was being used. I just wish he would tell me what's going on, or was going on."

"Rin?" A knock comes at the door and it opens slowly to Sesshomaru with a smile on his face. "Come."

"Thank you," she hugs Akari and follows Sesshomaru out into the hallway, only to be pinned against the wall and her lips attacked ferociously. She grips his chest, feeling his muscles through the silks of his clothing. His hands lift her thighs, creating a nest for her, widening her legs as he presses himself into her. Her head leans back, allowing him to nip at her neck. "We should go to our room." She rocks into his hips moaning lightly at the contact of his mouth against her skin.

"Mmh." He clamps down on the side of her neck and she can feel his fangs dipping into her skin.

She feels his fingers glide up the underside of her thigh and toy with the lacy _thong_ that Kagome gave her. As soon as they caress her lips, her legs tighten and she gasps. "My love, please? The bedroom." Her core is burning, like someone has taken a torch and lit her walls into blazes.

He breaks the string of her thong with his claw pulling it out and twirling it on his finger as he walks away.

"You!" Rin runs after him and he jogs into their bedroom. She chases after him, finding him behind their door as he tackles her, throwing her onto the bed. "Do you have to break every pair of those Kagome-sama gave me? Now that the well isn't working, how am I supposed to get new ones?"

"I don't like them." His claws trace tantalizing lines down the front of her kimono, ripping into the fabric as they glide down her body but only tingling against her skin.

Her breasts heave as she breathes, trying to get control of herself but when he is like this, it's impossible. His sole purpose is to make her scream and Rin knows it.

He lays over her, forcing her legs wider with his knees while literally peeling her kimono off in strips. "I don't like this kimono either." He presses his mouth into hers as his hands make fast work of what was left of her kimono.

She starts on the fabric of his haori, pulling it open, and then the white underlayer, until her hands run up his solid abs, but are quickly pinned above her head and he shakes his head, putting a pillow on top of them. "You will not move them."

"No I won't," she says bashfully as his mouth covers her left nipple, swirling the nub with his tongue, while his hand massages the other. She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from moaning as the fire burns that much hotter.

His other hand explores, fingers outstretched running the length of her abdomen before abruptly entering her core, pumping her, while his thumb circles her clit. She gasps at the firm thrusts, rocking her hips against his fingers as his mouth finally leaves her nipple and opens between her breasts, only to clamp down with a twirling tongue. It covers her other breasts and she fights the need to grab her knees, instead only stretching her knees up to her shoulders to widen herself and stretch until she feels the pads of his fingers pumping the bulging center of pleasure. Nails dig into the pillow that holds her hands in invisible bonds as his mouth comes lower and lower, lapping, nipping and then at last sucking on her clit. "Mmh!" it comes from her mouth louder than what she wanted. "Kami-sama Sesshomaru!"

It starts with her walls winding themselves up and feeling so hard she's going to shatter as his mouth licks and sucks, sending waves of pleasure through her, and then the first pulse, the second and the third until she feels a gush of fluid run down her legs. She cries in release, her orgasm taking over, only having seconds to recover until he is between her legs, pushing himself inside of her. He moves her knees to flank his sides, creating a tighter space for him to enter as he begins thrusting quickly inside of her.

It's then she sees the flash of pain cross his eyes, as if new lines of tension have bloomed on him over night. She holds one of his hands, opening her legs as wide as she can, with her knees cocked to the side. She invites him to come down and kiss her lips, joying in their connection. "My love." She strokes the tips of his ears to calm him, until he groans in release.

"I'm sorry, my heart." He collapses on top of her, breathing hard, and covered in sweat.

"For what?"

"For everything," he says and his eyes close.


	33. Sesshomaru-Past VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guilt threatens to drive Sesshomaru mad

**Sesshomaru-past**

As midnight rises, their bodies twist around each other in their sacred dance. Flesh finds warmth and comfort as his arms tie themselves around her waist, her back touching his chest. His nose is forever buried in the tendrils of hair that grow at the base of skull. The heat of her body feels like home, like a fire, like a piece of who he is. Yet guilt wraps around him like a heavy blanket, suffocating him.

As dreams come, his mind tricks him. She knows of his infidelity. She waits for him to be gone a week, guarding and inspecting his borders and he returns to find an empty home. There is no life, no little feet to greet him, no high pitched cries calling for their father. _What did you think would happen?_ A voice echoes, malevolently in his mind, taunting him for his unfaithfulness.

He bolts awake, his body jolting upright with a hand over his heart. He scrubs his eyes out, searching for Rin in bed next to him. She rises with him, grasping his hand, and hugging him from behind until her breasts and stomach are flush against his back. He feels her mouth working on his right shoulder, biting down in comforting motions. He pants, catching his breath, gripping her palm as if it is the last thing that he will do. He brings her fingers to his mouth and rests his tongue against the middle one.

"What is it my love?" Rin sighs from behind him. "Your heart is racing."

"Nothing," he lies, knowing that's not the case. An insidious fear remains and plagues his heart. He could have stomached Rin rejecting him, leaving him, finding another place to live five years before when he bonded Natsuki, but it was the pain of losing his children that broke his heart. It's not that he doesn't love Rin, but passion between lovers is different than the love between a father and his children.

"You know at times, you aren't a very good liar. Lay down with me."

He shakes his head, taking a cleansing breath, to clear his mind and releases her hands, getting off the futon. He can't speak. His mouth is dry and words are lost.

She's in front of him, blocking the door before he can even reach his clothing with her arms folded stubbornly over her ample breasts. An eyebrow raises and she smirks in the dark. "Rin," he warns her for her defiance.

"No," she says firmly. "You are tired and you will sleep. Get back in bed."

He stalks over to her, towering over her. She comes up to his chin and there are days he still cannot believe the child he protected turned into a woman capable of seducing him. He leans over as wickedly as possible and says, "you would bar my way?"

"Sesshomaru, please?" And when her voice breaks, so does his ire. "I know you. Your face is more lined." Her thumbs run along the borders of his eyes. "Your eyes are bloodshot and your hands are trembling. You're exhausted."

His forehead falls against hers as he breathes her breath. She smells like morning dew, the first rays of spring, the flowers that grow in their garden. "I can't sleep." If only dreams were not premonitions of the future. He wonders when Kensaku will use this against him, that he bedded Natsuki, that he slept with her, that their bond is stronger and harder to ignore now, to force his hand into something else.

"I'm here." Rin kisses his lips as she speaks and he wants to dine on her mouth. She tastes like him, his sweat and her own wonderful flavor. "Come to bed."

His head wavers back and forth again, refusing her. He can bury himself in the months' worth of messages Jaken has likely been fielding. There are trade agreements and meetings to be had. Anything but living in his guilt and the exhaustion that has become his life.

"What do I have to do to convince you to rest? To remove this tension?" she whispers, hugging his chest, pressing her body into his. "Should we go to the hot springs?"

"I do not need to bathe." Although he bathed multiple times before returning for fear that the children would smell Natsuki on his skin.

"I could make love to you again," she says mischievously, her hand dipping in between his thighs and lifting his flaccid shaft.

"That is also not what I need," he says wryly. "You wish to appease this Sesshomaru so I will sleep?"

"Yes," and a tear leaves the corner of her eyes. "You won't tell me what happened up there but I can see that it took its toll on you. I accept that you won't share it with me, but I can't stand seeing you like this. You don't even see it do you? You've aged…you don't look like a teenager anymore."

It's only then that he takes in her face and sees that her cheeks are as rosy as they have always been, her eyes bright. He tucks her hair behind her ear with a finger and nuzzles her nose. "You have not aged at all."

"Maybe it's just, what are those things you told me about last month? The ones about parents giving pieces of themselves to their children?"

"Genetics." He smiles as he kisses her. "Have you been in my study?"

"I want to understand what you find so fascinating about it. It looks like another language to me."

"It's 'modern Japanese'," he informs her softly. "The Miko had to make a chart for me at first."

"It's good you don't sleep then. You have so much time to learn. Sesshomaru? What do you need to sleep."

"You," he admits quietly. "And only you. I need to know you will be in this room while I sleep."

"You know I will be."

He shakes his head, his heart clenching. "No. If the children need you, bring them here, but for now, I need to bathe in your scent. Stay with me." He feels pathetic, but the panic lingers behind his heart because of the sins he committed.

"If it's what you need." She takes his hand and leads him back to their futon on the floor. She makes a nest for herself in the pillows, while he finds himself drawn to the peaks of her breasts. He buries his head in between the two mounds, holding her close to him. "You know there is nothing you could do that would ever make me leave you?"

He only sighs, because they both know that that isn't true. He could lose himself in the smell of her skin, and the way their scents combine. She strokes the tips of his ears, making goosebumps rise on his skin as his body slowly relaxes.

"I promised Sesshomaru," she says as if she knows what he is thinking. "I don't want to share you with her, but I won't leave you again. I love you. I'm sure you saw her there, but you came home to me."

He lifts his head looking in her eyes, his own having trouble staying open.

"She will never be yours like I am. I love you."

"As do I," he whispers against her skin, his heart finally at peace.

His eyes open to the morning, sun blinding him. He covers his eyes, sniffing the heat of Rin's core near his nose. He wakes with his head in her lap as she sits cross legged stroking his silver hair away from his face. He's managed to turn on his stomach and his children play quietly in the corner of the room. He pinches Rin's bottom making her squeak and then lean over and kiss his cheek. "It's about time you woke up."

"How long did I sleep for?"

"Three days."

"You stayed," he exhales in relief.

"Forever, my love. Harutoga, Yuki, get Chichiue his clothes."

The children rise excitedly, digging through his trunk, throwing clothes at his face and then his family curls around him, happily wanting to hear about what he did for a month. Yuki wants to know who he killed, Harutoga listens quietly only adding in that he can run faster than any of the village boys, even the cats, because they just had a big race. Taiyomaru tugs his ear down and whispers, "You don't have to feel guilty," and then he takes his father's hand and Sesshomaru's heart blooms with a comfort that isn't his own. "Does that feel better?"


	34. Kagome-Past IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inuyasha's disease progresses

**Kagome-past**

**Six Months later…**

She slaves all day in the gardens and rice paddies until her back hurts. When she finishes she plods back to her hut, to her husband, filled with trepidation that leaves her hands shaking and her mind racing. It's only gotten worse.

They've tried herb after herb. They sent letters to Sesshomaru asking to send their Healer. Nobuatsu has visited twice, staying for weeks at a time but nothing is working. The fever only breaks on the night of the full-moon, then rages the next day as if it had never stopped. The herbs only keep it manageable. He can no longer stand. Inuyasha's legs are swelled with blisters and pus. His hands are no better. The rash has wreathed his body, leaving vines of blisters across his upper legs, spreading to his abdomen. He feels constant nausea the higher the rash rises.

If only the Well would open. It has to open. **He** would know what it was…then the thought stops her. _What if this is the disease he talked about?_ She tries to remember if they ever discussed the cure? Did they? Was it ever something that they had spoken of? She feels like they did but he always guarded the information carefully. A pit forms in her stomach as she gazes into the forest where her sick lover hasn't been able to get out of bed.

She leaves the garden to make his lunch. He needs soft food now, soups and dishes that are easy to chew. It's torment watching him. Every afternoon she covers his body in clay and herbs to soothe the pain he is in and again at night. He hasn't been able to lift Tetsusaiga or fight in the weeks. Sango and Miroku visit daily, but there is nothing new to report. Shippo visits more often but there is nothing he can do. The fox demon is left to play practical jokes on himself to make Inuyasha laugh, but that inevitably makes him wheeze and his lungs cramp in pain.

One visit Kagome asks Nobuatsu, "Is Jinenji's father still alive?"

"Yes," the slender, silver haired demon answers. "He lives high in the mountains, past the lands the wolf demons call theirs, far from humans."

"Why did he let Jinenji and his mother go?" Thoughts plague her, what will happen if Inuyasha outlives her?

"She aged. She could no longer give him what he needed," Nobuatsu is so soft spoken at times it is difficult to hear him. He mixes herbs into a stone pestle that smell both sweet and bitter at the same time. He sits down with Inuyasha as he pours hot water into the mixture.

"Does he know more about herbs than you?" She would travel to the ends of the earth if that is what it took to save Inuyasha. _Kami-sama what's going to happen to Rin when she ages and Sesshomaru doesn't?_

"No. We learned under our father and he under his. There is nothing left to be done for this." He has done all he can for Inuyasha. The mixture is given to Kagome to apply to her lover's blisters.

"I don't understand…" She swallows back the tears threatening to leave her eyes. She chokes, trying not to be as terrified as she is. She knows it will last for ten years and for the life of her she can't recall the rest of the conversation she had with Sesshomaru in the future. _Is this it?_ She wracks her brain thinking. He had approached her in the coffee shop but then she had the laceration on her shoulder he treated with his blood, giving her a whopper of a fever and she forgot most of what he said, besides something about Natsuki and both children needing to be born. _But why? Rin needed the time away from him to get her strength back but this was twenty years ago and he never said anything about it again!_

"Neither do I," Nobuatsu affirms her confusion. The village needs him and he is no longer allowed to come and go as he once did. The attacks from the monks have continued. Inuyasha has been spared by merit of who he is married to and when Shippo comes it's at night when humans sleep.

Nobuatsu will travel by moonlight, when it's difficult for humans to see and in shadows where his aura won't be so easy to detect. If he isn't careful, Kagome knows he will lead the monks right to Sesshomaru's doorstep. The barrier that her son maintains protects the village, masking the great yoki from inside.

"You better not die on me," Kagome sits with Inuyasha in their quiet hut. A home that was once full of children is now empty. It's an odd kind of quiet that is constantly scattered with the smell of sickness. She pulls down the front of his red haori and white inner-layer and begins spreading the paste on his belly, giving strength to his tired digestive system.

"No plans on it." Inuyasha laughs, while he holds Tetsusaiga. He hasn't been able to use the katana in weeks. He twirls Kagome's hair in between his fingers. "You'll see, it will all work out in the end."

"I wish I had your faith," she whispers next to him as she makes another poultice to put on his legs.


	35. Sesshomaru-Past VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru becomes worried over Inuyasha's disease and tries to treat him, himself.

**Sesshomaru-Past**

He watches nervously as Nobuatsu leaves again. He sits in a tree outside of Kagome and Inuyasha's hut. Visiting Inuyasha has become more of pastime as of late. He's read over and over through the book of epidemiology and has been unable to find a disease that fits the description of what is happening to his brother. Herbs are not his strong suit, which is why he has sent their healer so often.

After the Horse demon leaves, Kagome exits with a tear in her eyes. He knows that look, the sight of a bereaved woman. His heart clenches as he leaves the tree and walks into the hut. He sets a tender hand on her shoulder that he quickly removes. "Go visit your friends," he says quietly as he enters. Sociality is integral to humans and he knows that she has barely left his side since this began.

Inuyasha legs are wrapped in bandages that are tinted brown with mint and other herbs. "What are you doing here?" Inuyasha wheezes out, trying to laugh.

That's another sound Sesshomaru has learned. Wheezing means there is an infection in the lungs. There are such things as normal heartbeats, temperatures and respirations. He counts them quietly, noticing that it's taking entirely too much effort for his hanyou brother to move oxygen. Not only that, his heart is racing faster than it should be. He touches his brother's forehead as he kneels and shakes his head. Sesshomaru palpates the throat, searching for the lymph nodes. There are things he has learned from having a village full of hanyous. Their hearts beat more slowly than humans, but can tolerate more stress. Their temperature feels the same, because he has no way of measuring them, but their breaths at times come more quickly when strained but much slower at rest.

"What the hell are you doing?" Inuyasha tries to bat at Sesshomaru's fingers.

His fingers press into Inuyasha's neck looking for the lymph glands that are directly below the jawline, he touches his own neck to compare and then mutters, "strange." He has none. He never thought to look for them before.

"You are being strange." He pushes his brother's fingers off him.

"I have no lymph glands." He finally sits next to his brother and hands him the bottle of water. He touches his own neck again and then the back where another chain of glands drain from the ears. "Odd." He lets it go, something he will investigate later. "You look worse."

"Thanks Sesshomaru," Inuyasha tries to laugh. "Sorry we can't fight this time."

"Is that what you thought we did?" He leans against the wall of the hut. "Do you ever wonder if you were able to survive because of your skill, or because I pushed you?"

"You're saying you fought with me to help me? That's a laugh," the younger brother says, half bitterly, but the years of anger and malice between the two are gone.

"I spent years hating you," Sesshomaru admits as he picks up a mortar and a pestle.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Making a paste for your breathing," that much he knows. He's made it many times for Rin and his children when they are sick. He lets his nose lead him to the eucalyptus that is stored in a cabinet and the lavender which helps with pain. "Does it hurt?" he asks his brother.

"Horribly, but don't tell Kagome. She's worried enough." He coughs and it's then the smell of blood lingers in the air.

"You would lose to something as small as a germ." He glares back as he puts the contents he needs into the stone bowl and begins mixing them. The smell clears his own nose and makes his eyes burn. He crushes the leaves and powder until it forms a thick paste and then sits down in front of his brother. He pulls down the red haori and white inner layer.

"Well, it's not like anything else could kill me," he chuckles.

"You're retracting." He points to the skin just below his brother's ribs as he rubs the paste against his hanyou brother's skin. "Does it ever break? The fever?"

"Usually during the new moon, but as soon as my yoki comes back, it comes back too. Have you seen anything like this before?"

"No," he admits almost sadly as he rubs the last of the paste in and adjusts the haori. "This should make breathing easier."

"What is retracting?" Inuyasha asks him.

He pulls the front of Inuyasha's haori down again. "Do you see how the skin tucks beneath the ribs as you breathe?" He pulls his own haori open. His breaths do nothing to the skin around his ribs. "When you're healthy the skin just barely dips. But like that, you can tell the lungs are unhealthy."

Inuyasha scoffs, pulling his robe back together. "You really like it don't you? The medical stuff?"

"It's fascinating." He sits down again and wipes his hands on a cloth. "There isn't much left to learn in battle."

"You mean there is no one strong enough to take you out." Inuyasha smiles through another coughing fit. This time blood drips from his mouth.

Sesshomaru reaches for a cloth and wipes it off. "You were the closest." Sesshomaru lifts a bottle of water for his brother to drink.

Inuyasha takes the bottle and grimaces. "So now you're a healer?"

"There are many things about medicine I find fascinating. It is not simple to learn. There are many difficult terms to remember and there are basic applications we cannot manage in this time that they have in the future." Then he closes his eyes. "There are times I worry that something as simple as a germ will take Rin from me."

"I thought about that with Kagome but they have vaccines in her time. Did you read about those yet?"

He nods.

"She's lucky. Simple things that wipe out whole villages, she's already immune too," Inuyasha coughs again and his eyes blink slowly up and down. "Remember when we couldn't be in the same space together without fighting?"

"I remember." Sesshomaru laughs to himself. "You were always so impetuous."

"I can't believe you introduced yourself right after my mother died. You were such an ass." The younger brother's eyes close. "Sorry. I'm just so tired."

"If you die from this, I will find a way to bring you back, just to kill you in battle," he says darkly, looming over his little brother. _Chichiue wouldn't want this. Stay ototo._

"You already used Tenseiga once." With the eyes closed, the voice fades.

"Inuyasha?" he startles, then sees that his brother is deep in sleep. His borders need to be checked, he will visit Tsukimaru that night. With a heavy heart that is consumed in worry, he stands and leaves.


	36. Kagome-Past V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kagome begins to lose hope that Inuyasha will heal

**Kagome-Past**

**A year later…**

It hasn't stopped. Not the fevers or the slow spread of the rash that began on the soles of his feet and on his palms. It's risen higher now, up to his belly and across his chest. He spends most of his days in bed. He can't move. He vomits blood. The fever has soared so high in the summer that he broke into seizures. He is delirious, a shell of what he once was. Sango and Miroku have searched for healers, for anything that will cure him. Kagome knows, she knows now exactly what it is, but she can't remember if they ever discussed the cure. She sits at night wishing there was something that would save him. It all makes sense now, the awkward glances, the way **he** would never answer her questions about where Inuyasha was. She knows now. This will be his end and their time together is ending so much sooner than she thought it would.

The rash has spread to his ribcage, only slowing as winter set in. The cold air kept his fever from raising as high. The new moons break it, only for it to come back that much stronger. He isn't going to make it and she knows it.

She holds his hand one frigid night in winter. "Inuyasha?"

"Huh?" he whispers. His eyes are covered in yellow patches of mucous. His skin is pale except for the red pimpled sheen of the rash.

"It's been a year and a half," she mutters, holding his hand.

"I know," he coughs. Blood trickles down the side of his chin. "This isn't exactly how I planned on dying."

"Stop." She holds his hand and wipes the blood from the corner of his mouth with a cloth. Their hut seems so dark and dank. A year and a half of him being sick, she has almost forgotten what the outside world looks like, trees, wind, the taste of spring, the cold of winter. She's done nothing but care for her lover.

"You lied to me you know," his voice is coarse and raspy. "Get me some water?"

She lifts his neck and helps him drink. He coughs as it goes down.

"I never lied," she argues, not knowing what he is talking about.

"You did for years," he laughs. "I used to smell him on you and wonder why. He never quite smelled like he does now. Forest and pine, but now sulfur and grease and sterile chemicals."

"What are you talking about?" She wipes the tears from her cheeks. She's prayed to every diety she can name, begged the heavens to move, to do something to heal him and nothing has changed.

"Sesshomaru…he's in the future, in your time." He chuckles wryly. "I should have known that bastard would be too stubborn to die."

"How?" She can't finish the sentence. Her chest is tight. Did he know? He knew and never told her? It hits her like a heavy weight, that all this time, the last twenty years he could have saved his brother and chose not to and all she wants to do leap through the well and purify the shit out of Sesshomaru until he tells her the cure, until he gives her a chance to save Inuyasha's life.

"He said…he will never stop feeling guilty for what is about to happen. He couldn't remember when it happened. He knew his kids were still little. He doesn't know who did it either. He spent centuries looking…"

"He found you?" She covers her mouth, trying to hide the feeling of betrayal.

"I'm going to die before he can make it here and say good-bye," he closes his eyes. "You could have told me."

"Please, did he tell you how to stop it?" _Kami, please…he had to say something._ Is there an herb she doesn't know? She's searched high and low, Miroku, Sango and Shippo spent the last bit of fall tracing their steps to Mount Hakurei and back begging every healer they found for a cure. Nobuatsu sent messengers to the wolves, to carry further to Jinenji's father in the mountains. They all returned empty handed.

"No," he mutters, eyes closing. "He said it has to happen."

"I don't know why," she finally breaks down on his chest. "Why Inuyasha?"

"It's part of how he becomes who he is in the future. He gave me the choice. He could have found a sample of the virus and infected me, then cured me or things could happen the way they do. But…my death gives him strength. I want you to move on Kagome…find someone else? Okay? Don't get stuck mourning for me."

"Twenty years wasn't long enough," she holds his robe crying. "How could you make this choice and not include me?"

"Give Tetsusaiga to Tatsuo and my robe to Taisho." He wipes his nose. "If you see the girls again, tell them I love them okay?"

"I will," she can't stop crying, "for Kami-sake," she sobs, "please…I'm not ready."

He rests his hand on her head and exhales, mouth bubbling as he does. "It's okay Kagome."

"It's not," she can't stop crying "It's not…why didn't you tell me? Why didn't he tell me?" _Why can't I stop this?_


	37. Sesshomaru-Present IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things begin to look bleak for Sesshomaru in the future as he struggles to hang on to life.

**Sesshomaru-present**

He's soiled. He can feel it even before he opens his crusty eyes. The lights are dimmed. He feels an IV in his arm upper wrist and reaches to pull it out, but is caught by a willowy white hand. "You shouldn't do that."

"Natsuki," he whispers quietly. He would know the feel of her slender fingers anywhere. His throat is hoarse, he feels weak.

She sits on the bed next to him, even that movement makes him nauseas. "You really are trying to leave me aren't you?" She is dressed in all her finery, maroon and teal kimonos he had made as gifts. Golden earrings he bought her after their first century together and sapphire combs that were a thank you for giving him Taka. Natsuki reminds him of his mother, which inevitably makes him think of the whiny puppy in the other room and whether or not he should tell his lover that their daughter came home. _Taka…_

He swallows tasting blood in his throat. "How much did I lose?"

"If you were human you would be dead," Haruto Yamamoto comes from the side of the room. "Four liters."

A bitter chuckle escapes his mouth. If only exsanguination could lead to his demise, he would have died a hundred times by now. It's only then that Sesshomaru notices how un-human he looks. His fangs are in place, the makeup is off his face. His mokomoko has puffed around his shoulders cradling his head. He will have to explain the secret of the cure he has kept silent for more than a decade now. "Did you take care of the girl?" He can't remember what happened or if the procedure began.

"No." Haruto sits down on a chair and slides next to him. "We've been using your blood and the blood of your son to cure cancer?" The elder doctor's face is lined. Worry wafts off him in waves. Oddly, worry smells like mushrooms just as they start to ooze and film on top.

"Who told you?" he wonders, blinking his eyes.

"Izayoi," Natsuki interjects. "It was hard for them to remain quiet. They were alone and the injections weren't working. You are hooked up to Tsukimaru's blood. Taiyomaru is on his way. It's still transfusing to stabilize you. When it's done I'll take you home."

"Dammit." He kicks himself for making a scene. "My cover is blown."

"So if I understand it, you are a fourteen hundred year old dog-demon?" Haruto questions him in a gruffer and more challenging tone than he is used to conversing with him.

"Guilty." Sesshomaru stairs blankly at the ceiling. "The procedure is safe, you know it. Give the child a chance at life. Did you at least give her platelets to stop her own bleeding?"

"She's stable. She's spending the night here for observation, not that we normally do that. But I couldn't very well tell her mother I had seizing dog demon on the floor. Tell me why I shouldn't report you?"

"Because I'll kill you," Natsuki's says plainly, emotionless. It's not a threat, it's a fact. A contingent they planned on if this ever happened. "I should kill all of you." She would and he knows it.

"It's unethical what you've been doing," Haruto keeps his arms crossed, even with a sheen of sweat forming on his brow and fear prickling off him like soured pepper and lye.

 _Scare him, Natsuki,_ he thinks so she can't hear. Their minds have become one and at times it makes it difficult to hide himself from her, which will be problematic, considering who is in the other room, not just Taka. _My heart,_ he pines for her.

"And it's ethical what was done to me?" If he had tears left, he would cry. "That one race would decide that they are so much purer and holier than mine? That we were cast to the shadows to be nothing more than myths and legends? Bedtime stories to tell children? That the disease still exists and what is left of my kind is plagued with seizures that will destroy them?"

Haruto's face softens. "Sessho my friend, tell me what happened? You are one of the most brilliant doctors we have ever seen. Your cure is legendary, but if I am going to break code and continue to use donations from youkai…I want the whole story. How did you fall ill?"

"You can't help me," Sesshomaru says quietly. He's searched through every medical journal for the last seventy years. He's been to every continent and studied every form of medicine available and hasn't been able to find a cure.

"And if he could? You arrogant bastard?" Natsuki slaps his cheek just as the world is fading out. "Wake up! Or I'll hit you again."

The impact startles him awake and makes his jaw sting. "I don't know what caused it or what they used."

"They?" Haruto asks.

"Monks." He groans feeling his stomach rile. "I'm thirsty Natsuki."

She takes a cup from the tray next to him, helping him sit up. "You're filthy." She picks up his blood stained hair. "Is there somewhere I can bathe him?"

It's hard to have any pride left when your covered in your own blood and excrement. He drinks the cold water through the straw. "The procedure will not harm our patient Haruto. Give her the cure."

"Whose blood is it?" Haruto stands firmly.

"Tsukimaru's. It must come from pure-blooded inu-yokai only. In the past I used my own blood until it was degraded." He drinks again letting the cold liquid wash into his throat. It soothes the burn he feels in the back of his throat. "Save her." His mind flashes to Rin. _Is she cursed to suffer until she meets me? Destined to die and then live again?_

"I'll do it…we don't have another recovery room. Will you be okay with company?" Haruto asks.

"Yes," especially this company. He is insatiably curious about the girl in the other room. Does she know who she is? Would she know who he was? He thumbs his chest and nearly starts. The scar is returning. He lifts the hospital gown he's been dressed in, the faintest outline of the scar that symbolized his bond to Rin is returning. The jagged, rootlike scar that Bukoseno branded him with is puckering his skin. _I would know your soul. My heart._

"What's wrong?" Natsuki asks him, like a beacon into his soul, picking up on what he wants to keep hidden.

"Nothing," Sesshomaru mutters and pats her cheek fondly.

"You have a redundant heart, did you know that?" Haruto inquires laughing. "We turned the leads off when the EKG was off the charts."

"I knew it." He remembers the first time he did an X-ray on himself. His lungs had two extra lobes. He has a second heart that beats in time or in place of the first one. Those are only some of the differences between himself and humans.

"You're really a demon?"

"Do we look human?" Natsuki crosses her arms, folding her mokomoko around herself. For emphasis she raises a hand high into the air and lets a whip flash around the room nearly slapping the doctor in the face.

Haruto ducks holding his head and protests, "He did. Although I wondered if you were an albino." He smiles at his medical partner. "When she is finished, I will allow Nina back here. Should we let her service dog in?"

He laughs to himself. "Yes. I don't think she will be an issue. Keep the foster mother out."

"What did they do to you?" Haruto asks again.

He shakes his head, even he doesn't know. By the time he fell ill it was contagious through bodily fluids and surface contact. They did what they could to minimize transmission but alcohol and nitrile gloves didn't exist then, neither did masks.

The other doctor approaches Sesshomaru's bed and sits on the edge. "I want to help you my friend. Is there any way to save you? You've been using the blood of two of your sons to manage this illness. Is it bloodborne? Something in our specialty?"

"I've been searching…I have samples from before I was infected, don't ask me how. I was going to compare them to samples from now. If I can get out of this bed," he exhales heavily.

"You need to sleep," Natsuki places a chaste kiss on his lips. "Rest. Can you help him?" she asks the doctor.

"I can try. Why aren't you so sick?"

She just sighs. "It's a long story."

"I'll run the procedure and then I expect to hear all about it." He leaves and the couple is alone.

"You will care for Izayoi and Mayumi," he whispers through labored breaths. The edges of his vision are blackening again. He can feel the effects of the loss of blood. He needs Taiyomaru's to complete the cocktail, to stay in this world.

"Stop it Sesshomaru." She wipes her eyes, claws drifting past her eyebrows. Her lips touch his along with the warmth of her yoki.

"You will care for them. There is money in an account for both of them. Whether they decide to go to college or…whatever they decide." He doesn't know what his nieces want. He promised his brother he would care for them.

"Please?" Natsuki begs him crying on his chest. "You can't leave me."

"In an envelope in mother's room, there is an something for Izayoi. There is one that could match her. She won't be able to be with a human, although he won't like it."

"Sesshomaru," she sobs against him. "I didn't wait a century for you, so you could die like this."

"It's okay," he strokes her hair with his thumbs, "it will be fine in the end." She shakes and shivers against him in tears. For once he feels guilt for the thing that ties them together, that he stole her youth and will leave her a widow with no one left to fill the void he will leave.


	38. Interlude IX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taka and Tsukimaru have a show down. Taiyomaru discovers something about Nina.

Night turns to day and they are forced to wait. First they were told the cure wasn't ready and then that it might not be available at all. It was then Taka knew that it was because her father had collapsed and now they knew the truth that had been secret before. Nina hasn't gotten any better and the guilt of taking her out of Japan when she was a child begins to eat at her.

As Nina sleeps, weak and pale, Taka paces back and forth in the patient room. Overnight a nasal canula was lassoed around Nina's nose to make breathing easier and new labs were drawn to see how far the leukemia has progressed.

In the night, she felt her mother's powerful yoki enter the office, but could do nothing more than watch through a crack in the door, gazing down the hall. She wanted to shout at the top of her lungs, "Hahaue, I'm here!" Her mother's visage has aged with dark lines around her eyes and bitter wrinkles along her fingers. She felt the swirl of yoki, her mother calming her father's trimmers and then everyone bustling back and forth, searching for answers and she could do nothing but watch. Nina took precedence and she was fairly certain if her mother found her, she would be locked away in the castle in the sky again. _Not that I know what will happen to me once Chichiue takes her, if he survives. There has to be something to save him._

The greatest torment was being so closed to her father and so far away at the same time. Thoughts flew in and out of her mind when her father collapsed. She could have gotten a line in but even she could have told them it wouldn't have stopped without her mother but then she would be found out and she really didn't want to end up in the castle again.

While the thoughts were eating at her, a second surge of powerful yoki caught her attention making her skin crawl. Tsukimaru arrived and instead of going straight to their father as he should have, he scared the shit out of Taka when he blasted the door to Nina's room open, nearly waking the girl and her mother. The cherry oak slammed against the wall and his eyes were blazing with a fury she hadn't seen before.

Taka took a defensive stance in front of Nina. She wouldn't let anything happen to her little girl.

 _Why the hell did you bring her back?_ His eyes burned holes into her skin.

_Because you were the stupid ass-hole who made me take her in the first place!_

If it wouldn't have brought Nina and Hannah out of their slumber, she would have attacked then, but instead she let her hackles rise and her eyes deepened until the red was nearly purple with blood lust. _Just try it you little fucker._

 _As if you could do more than scratch me?_ Tsukimaru laughed audibly. _The last time we sparred, you cried because you broke a nail._

_I'm already in my true form. I'll kill you before you touch her._

And that was how they ended up in the alleyway behind the office. The only reason the entire office didn't hear them was because of the thunderstorm outside. The rain slapped down on their bodies and thunder pierced the skies, swallowing their battle cries.

Tsukimaru slammed Taka back first against the brick wall, making her ribs crack and she responded by spitting dokkasu into his eye and punching him in the stomach as hard as she could. So hard it sent shockwaves up her bones and made her knuckles crack. Fighting never was her strong suit. _You have Chichiue's mind,_ her mother had told her many times, _but not his strength._

The blow barely made him flinch and he grabbed her around the neck, flinging her against another wall, making the back of her head bleed. She cupped the injury in her hand and flew at him again. This time she bit his hand, when he tried to catch her, sinking her teeth deep into his skin and gassing the flesh with dokkasu.

He crushed her head into one of the dumpsters and kicked her feet out from under her, sending her careening on the ground. They ended up rolling in the trash, struggling for dominance. He landed on top of her, pinning her arms over her head and straddling her hips to keep her down. "You are going to break our mother's heart," Tsukimaru rebuked her.

"And you are going to kill Chichiue!" she shrieked back at him, struggling to get loose. "Let me go!"

"You never were a good fighter."

She throws her knee up, hitting him in the crotch. "And you never learned to guard your goods." Taka flipped upright and threw her hair over her shoulder. Tsukimaru stumbled backwards cupping himself. Taka thought she had the upper hand until he blocked her from kicking him in the face.

"You're dressed like a whore."

She wore tight fitting jeans and a spaghetti-strapped white shirt that was now sheen from the rain, making her pink nipples poke through the material. Something Chichiue would kill her for. "And you look like like…like a…"

"You can't even think of something." He threw her down again stomach first, cracking her chin on the black pavement and then straddled her back. "You don't get it!"

"You don't get it!" She grunted in pain as he forced her arms over her head and pinned her legs with his feet. "Get off me!"

"She screamed that!" Tsukimaru fumed at Taka. "You don't know!"

"Don't know what?" Taka struggled against him, attempting to flail her arms to no avail. He always was better at fighting than she was. By the time she was born there was no one to fight, no need to survive. "Haha-ue loves Chichiue, fine…but that doesn't mean you get to decide the fate of one little girl. I swear to everything that is holy, if you lay one claw on that her, I will kill you. I'll rip your fucking face off! Let me go!"

"Really Taka?" Tsukimaru burst out laughing. "I could kill you now."

"Then they'll help me. You're ruining my hair. Get off!" She tried kicking and biting but to no avail, he was too strong.

"You really think they could?" Tsukimaru gloated, making her want to prove to him that she was stronger than he thinks she is.

"What the hell is your problem? Chichiue is dying anyway! She's one little girl! She can't hurt them!" Her heart clenched at the thought of letting her father go. _There has to be a way to save him._

"What is my problem? My problem is that he left her in heat for months. He left her in heat for so long she was feral by the time he came and that he held her down and fucked her while she screamed for him to stop! Kami, Taka are you so thick-headed!" He shoves her face into the ground, smashing her nose. At the same time she feels him ripped off her, leaving claw marks in her shoulder blades.

Taka cupped her bleeding nose and saw Taiyomaru in front of her. He held Tsukimaru by the arm and then just as quickly as he appeared, threw his brother on the ground, pinning him the same way he had done to Taka. "Taiyomaru." Taka runs to him, throwing her arms around his neck, sobbing. "It's not true. Please? It's not true!" Chichiue would never do that. He wouldn't.

Taiyomaru shakes his head.

"And you wonder why he has always favorited you? Why they wouldn't let you leave the castle!? You were a consolation prize!" Tsukimaru bellows at her. "She didn't want him, but he took her anyway!"

"Go inside Taka. Yamamoto-sama is going to wake Nina soon. And you," Taiyomaru kicks Tsukimaru in the waist so hard Taka hears one of his ribs snap.

"Get off me!" Tsukimaru threw Taiyomaru and that was the last she had seen before running back into the office, changing forms and pretending to be the adorable white puppy that followed Nina around, but god it ached. Her stomach felt like it was stretched, she had to rinse her skin of the blood and nearly broke into tears again when she got back on the bed. Tsukimaru kicked her ass.

Now she waits and paces. Her mind reels with what her brother said. _I am not…he wouldn't. He would never. Chichiue despises rape. Oh, Chichiue, you're so sick! Please don't die!_ She stops pacing when the door at last echoes with three light raps and Yoshi enters with Haruto. "Excuse me," Haruto speaks with a thick accent.

"Oh." Hannah wakes up, rubbing her eyes. Exhaustion litters her face. She looks more like a raccoon than a woman. She sits up quickly, yawning. "What's happening?"

"Can we move dog?" Yoshi asks, sitting down onto the bed.

"Down, Lucy." _Down_ is emphasized with the point to the ground. Against her will, Taka is annoyed that she is being treated like a common mutt. She lands with a slight whimper, feeling like her entire body quaked with the land.

"Is the dog hurt?" Yamamoto asks.

"I don't think so. She doesn't like doctor's offices. What is going on? We've been waiting for hours. If you aren't going to help my daughter, I want to take her home."

Haruto runs a wrinkled hand through his dusty hair. "We will go ahead with the procedure. It's simple, but she will need to be observed for a day after we finish running the medicine. The observation room is for patients only—"

"But she is just a child!" Hannah protests angrily.

"The dog is welcome, but the girl will not be alone. Dr. Rinata suffered a mild episode that required treatment. He will keep her company. You may visit tomorrow morning. Yoshi."

"Hai," Yoshi answers quickly and listens to Nina's heart. The movement wakes the girl up and she immediately reaches a hand out.

 _Familiar_ , Taka thinks to herself. _She searching for something familiar._

Hannah catches her hand and begins explaining what is happening. Nina gets upset and Taka knows it's that she will be left alone. Taka grins internally, knowing her father will watch over Nina. _Just like he did before. Stupid Tsukimaru. You can't stop fate. Chichiue what did you do?_

Hannah wishes Nina a goodbye, nervously letting her go and exits the room. The two doctors begin speaking. "She's close," Yoshi tells Haruto as pulls down the hospital gown, taking the catheter out to administer the medicine. "If she had come a few days later, she would be dead."

Taka groans and leaps back onto the bed, laying down in Nina's lap. _I won't let her die._

"Hey," Haruto says in English. "Down."

 _Fuck off,_ Taka snorts and growls at him.

"Then get off her chest, so I can listen," Haruto says in Japanese and Taka obliges. "Did you understand me?" Haruto looks at her completely shocked.

_No, I just decided to move, because her bony hips are more comfortable, moron._

"Be our luck, it's another dog demon in disguise," Yoshi's voice shivers as he speaks. "How are we going to get out of here?"

Taka snorts again, trying not to laugh. _If you only knew. God this one is cute._ She licks her lips looking at Yoshi like he's a piece of meat. He has nice muscles along his arms, a slender build, a beautiful bald head and she glances down at his scrubs, _not bad. Maybe he would pop my cherry. Maybe a one night stand. Maybe if Chichiue stays in that bed so he won't kill him. Oh why can't I have sex? Except I feel like Tsuki just used me as a punching bag._

"Get out of here?" Haruto asks, leaving the room and then coming back with a liter sized IV bag full of a swirling red liquid.

"They're going to kill us."

"Only if we don't help him."

"You really want to help him?"

"You don't?" Haruto hangs the bag and hooks it up to Nina's catheter. "We swore an oath to help those who are ill, to do no harm. I've stood by his side for ten years, seen him shed tears over lost patients, had him over for dinner. He even helped when my wife had our last child. We thought the baby was dead—"

 _Tenseiga,_ Taka sighs, watching the red liquid snake its way down the bolus into the line and Nina's chest. _The baby probably was dead._

"We're going to help. Now this is all she needs. Do you think one of his children speaks better English than we do?"

As if on cue, Taiyomaru enters the room with a bruised chin and a scrape on his neck. His hair is plaited into a thick braid down his back. "I do," he says through a half opened door.

"If I catch you two fighting again when your Chichiue is on his deathbed and you two carry the blood he needs to stay alive, I swear I will hog tie you both and only keep you alive long enough to heal him! You stupid children!" Natsuki screams in the hallway.

"He started it!" Tsukimaru barks at her.

"Shut up!" she screams even louder.

Taiyomaru shuts the door and sits on the bed. He fingers curl through Taka's fur and she shivers as he manipulates her yoki and knits her injuries back together. It's so warm it makes her nerves spark.

Nina grabs Taiyomaru's face, touching it from top to bottom, his nose, his eyes, then his ears, but then she starts signing furiously. _Oh my god, what the hell are you doing to my dog? Why are you white and red?_

 _She knows you aren't human,_ Taka tells Taiyomaru. _She can see you healing me._

"Oops," he says audibly. "Well?" He raises an eyebrow at the two doctors.

"Is she okay?" Haruto asks.

"She is…aren't you little one?" Taiyomaru speaks in English, cupping one of her hands. "You look just like my mother," he mouths so the other two can't hear. "Get her computer."

Yoshi digs in her bag and brings out her laptop setting it by her fingers. "We've hooked her up to the medicine. Very soon she will experience a high fever, possibly a seizure. Once it's finished, we'll move her to recovery with your father."

Taiyomaru smiles softly and tells her that she will be with Rinata-sama, which brings a big smile to her face. Once the two doctors leave, Taiyomaru helps Nina lay back down and brings a washcloth to clean her brow. He touches her heart. His hand lights up and Nina's eyes bulge.

"What are you doing?" Taka changes quickly to humanoid form.

"It's still there, barely. She was born with it."

"Born with what?"

"Their bond. It is Ka-san."

Taka sits down with them, when Nina's computer starts speaking. "Why are there two of you?"

Taka picks up Nina's hand and starts signing quickly. _We're both nurses—_ but before she can finish her lie, Taiyomaru has his hands against both sides of Nina's head with a smirk on his face and Taka's hair rises at the yoki being channeled by her hanyou brother. "What are you doing?"

Nina's body sways and her eyes roll into the back of her head. Taka catches the girl. Her skin is already heating with fever from the treatment. Taka picks up the washcloth and starts wiping her forehead, while Taiyomaru once again touches Nina's temples and sets his forehead against the girl's.

"I will kill you—"

"Shut up Taka," Taiyomaru spits out. His yoki rises so high that Taka feels like she can't breathe.

"There it is," he whispers.

"There what is?" Taka grabs his arm to throw him, but it's like moving a stone.

"Her sight," Taiyomaru grins as if he's a little boy again.

"Her sight?" Taka's mouth falls open, but there's no time to speak, the nurses are coming and she must be the adorable dog, Lucy again. _Her sight?_


	39. Rin Past VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time passes. The attacks against Youkai get worse, forcing Sesshomaru to restrict visits to his son in the sky. A message comes about Inuyasha.

Time passes. No one was allowed outside of the barrier after the incident with Yuki and the monks. Instead of villagers coming and going from the barrier, only the strongest among them were allowed to leave to hunt and expected to return before sunrise. Before winter set in, Rin stockpiled livestock, goats, chickens, cows and yaks to supply the village with meat to survive the bitter winter. The garden was doubled in size to stockpile the food and new huts were built to protect youkai looking for shelter. Their home was no longer for couples like she and Sesshomaru but a haven for all who sought refuge.

But winter brought a reprieve from the attacks by monks. It was too cold, even for them to venture out for the sake of purifying but that didn't stop the risk of those coming and going from the barrier. As new villagers came during the warmer months and into the fall, Sesshomaru and the sentinels had to lay false tracks and yoki trails to distract the monks. On more than one occasion he was late coming home because he knew he was being followed. At night he recounted to Rin the lives he had taken to protect their home. Demons across Japan began to shelter and venture out less, making it easier for him to remain home and leave his boarders guarded by his allies.

Sota and Sayako sent word that even the ogres had returned to the mountains. Koga and Ayame pushed their wolves higher into the peaks of the mountains where the weather is the coldest and humans don't venture. And their family by Goshinboku. They hadn't heard from them in weeks.

Rin finds Sesshomaru in his study one night, bent over a piece of parchment, biting his thumb claw. Something she has not seen him do before. So undignified and raw. that it makes her worry. She walks up behind him, dancing against the cold marble flooring of their home and massages his shoulders, embracing him from behind. "What is it my love?"

"Tsukimaru," Sesshomaru whispers, staring at the letter he has penned.

She leans over his shoulder, her mouth falling open. "You won't visit him so often?"

Sesshomaru grips her wrist and pulls her in front of him, down against his chest. "You're cold."

"It's winter and my bedmate was missing." She kisses the underside of his chin. "Why?"

"It's no longer safe."

"They can't get to the castle in the sky," she whispers, hoping that it soothes him.

"Until they find one that can fly," he speaks more coldly than the winter air wrapping around them.

"Sesshomaru—"

"Don't," he bites out and it makes her heart drop.

"Fine." Sometimes solace is best, this she knows from being with him for nearly fifteen years. He catches her wrist and pulls her back, kissing her neck in lazy circles, sending shivers down her spine. She holds his cheek in her hand as her back arches and he grips her breast, making heat flame in her center. "Mmh," she moans, "you don't have to."

"I can't sleep," he says with so much sadness hidden that it makes her skin crack with energy. He bends her over the table, arching her back. Her breath catches at the sound of his silks loosening and she spreads herself for him, knowing before it happens that he is going to take her quickly.

"UH!" the cry is loud and shakes the wall. He's hard and for a moment it hurts, but she knows he needs it. Her petals relax, beneath his penetration and she feels for her bud, making her hips tense against his.

"I hurt you," he mutters in her ear, so sensuously and seductively she clamps down on his shaft, begging him to move. "Forgive me, my heart."

"It's okay, my love." Her head lulls to the side as she cups his chin, warmed by their bond, by the comfort she knows she is giving him. "It's only temporary. You will see your son again, oh! Not so hard." The tips of his ears have always been his tender spot. She rolls one in her fingers, until ragged breath calms and his thrusts are less like he is hammering into her and more like a symphony of two lovers. She rolls her hips against his, stretching the fabric of her kimono until the skin of her shoulders and back are visible and she can feel his mouth, sucking at her skin.

"Take…mmmh…my love." She grips his hips, gasping at the heat, how his rod is on fire between her legs, the strength of his hips as he plunges deeper and deeper. She can feel him tensing, and tugging.

"My heart," he groans out, making her heart sore. "I love you." For one with claws so sharp a sword is unnecessary, his hands are tender and gentle as they explore her body, twirling her nipples, her rubbing down the center of her stomach, slicing through her obi until she is as bare as he is. They slide lower, cupping her sex from the front, rolling her clit until she sees stars and calls his name. "SESSHOMARU!" The last four thrusts make her legs shake until she feels him dripping down her leg and he holds her tightly from behind.

"Rin," he says, lovingly as he collapses, taking her with him. She's wrapped in what's left of her kimono and his under layers as he breaths heavily against between her breasts. Whether it's from the sweat that has peppered their bodies or unshed tears, a slow drizzle of moisture snakes its way down her body and his body shakes, the last word she hears, "my son." And her heart breaks, knowing how he loves his children and how much it hurts that he can't see Tsukimaru.

As winter fades into to spring, Rin gets antsy again. Nearly two years after Yuki was attacked, stories began to spread of a mysterious disease so similar to what Inuyasha struggles against. Miroku had to extend the barrier to protect them. They feared spring. Would it mean an upsurge in attacks again?

Rin works in the public dining room, setting out plates for Sesshomaru's grand arrival. Instead of meetings with allies, his returns are met with invitations for the villagers to join them and celebrate the Lord and Lady. It's simple, but it makes their world seem less dark. Even Yuki helps happily, knowing the joy this brings her parents and the other villages. She's shadowed by Rei-chan and Shiori-chan and the other hanyou girls from the village, while Harutoga runs with his neko and kitsune friends. Taiyomaru ever the strange boy he is, trails is mother.

"Rin-sama," Katsumoto bows low to the ground. "I have an urgent letter from the village for Sesshomaru-sama."

"He isn't home," Rin says nervously. "Let me see it." She holds her hand out taking the parchment. She reads the letter once, then again and again. She covers her mouth as tears begin to form in the corner of her eyes. "Hisato!" she screams for her own guard.

"What is it?" He comes around the corner, drawing one of his short blades, looking for a fight.

"What is it Ka-san?" Harutoga asks, while they walk around the dinner-table.

"It's Ojisan." She wipes her eyes. "Hisato, the Meido stone," she says quickly. "Can you send for Gobodo-sama?"

"He's dead?" Hisato balks.

"Inuyasha is dying." The tears won't get off her face, leaving her slapping them off. She closes her eyes and focuses on her bond calling for her lover. "We may not make it in time."

Hisato covers his heart. "She's coming."

"Katsumoto, I need your speed. Go to the southern-border. Sayako and Sota don't know." She coughs, trying to catch her breath. Her heart is fluttering faster than she is moving, making her feel dizzy. She leans on Hisato for support. Inuyasha was ever her friend, their strongest ally, and the one she could talk to the easiest growing up.

"The illness he had?" Hisato inquires. "I'll get Aun to begin our journey."

"He's not fast enough." Rin wipes her eyes, afraid that they won't make it in time.

"I can drop you off if you can hang on tight enough before I go and get his other child." Katsumoto motions for them to follow. "Just hold on tight and don't fall off. I won't be responsible if you fall."

"I will ensure they won't fall. Quickly, Katsumoto." Hisato rushes the children out the door, piling them onto Katsumoto once he has transformed. He sits behind Rin, keeping one hand around her waist and the other holds to the black fur beneath them. "He'll kill you if they fall."

Yuki holds pushes Taiyomaru against Hisato's back, and then digs her claws into his side, while Harutoga sits behind her. For the first time in their long years, Rin pushes her face against Hisato's chest, finding comfort in their friendship. "He can't Hisato."

"He won't. The meido will revive him." But somehow Hisato's affirmation brings her little comfort.


	40. Sesshomaru past VI and Kagome-Past VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inuyasha dies a tragic death.

**Sesshomaru-past**

He hasn't seen Tsukimaru in many long months. Somehow, Rin convinced him the night before that it was worth the risk and so he left his home, making the long trip to see his son. His presence was announced with all the fanfare of a prince coming home after a long absence. He ate lunch with his mother and when the little girl with black hair, plaited so neatly, and tiny pointed ears came with Tsukimaru, his heart beat as if he was seeing the boy for the first time again. A father without his children is not a father.

They adjourn to the rooftop garden, where Sesshomaru follows Tsukimaru as he explores the grass and flowers. The baby smells purple lavenders and then sneezes and laughs, chasing the pollen. In a way, Tsukimaru reminds him of Yuki at this age when he starts hacking away at the flowers, annoyed that they made him sneeze.

"He's cute," the little girl with black braids comes out from behind a tree. "I'm Reiko."

Sesshomaru nods, acknowledging the child, then returns to his son.

"We're friends. We play together." She bounds over stones in the pond, skipping until she is next to him. "I help Natsuki watch him."

Sesshomaru chuckles, wondering how his other lover fairs on her own and if she has better company than this tiny child. "Where are your parents?"

"Gone," the little girl says, but with little emotion.

But he has no time to ask more before he feels Rin tugging, no, yanking at his senses, screaming in his mind for him to come to her. But no sooner does the yearning come than her location moves more quickly than he can fly. _Katsumoto. What's happening?_

He scoops Tsukimaru off the ground just as his mother comes running. "Something's wrong," she says next to him. "Hisato is calling me, asking for the meido stone. He's moving in the direction of the village where your hanyou brother lives."

"He's been ill." He walks quickly with her. "Who is she?" The little girl with big black eyes and hair to match, stands outside the garden with hands outstretched for Tsukimaru.

"She'll take Tsukimaru back to Natsuki," Gobodo-sama says fondly. "We must leave quickly."

He passes his baby to the child and then runs for the edge of the garden, leaping over the railing, freefalling. He focuses on Rin's direction, knowing he can't compete with Katsumoto's speed. His heart quickens. Years previously, he and Inuyasha had been enemies, but they had learned to bury their differences. On more than one occasion Inuyasha had saved his life and Rin's. He blasts through the air draining his yoki, knowing that he will need to rest after this. Rin has stopped. The moment she does, the calling becomes a fury in his mind. She is bleeding for him to come.

**Kagome-past**

His chest stopped rising. Seconds before that, he vomited his entire supply of blood. At least she is sure it's his entire supply. The floor is covered in blood. It drips through the floorboards. He gripped her fingers just before his face turned pasty and then went slack. The scream reverberates throughout the village. She is alone, wishing someone is there with her. She beats at his chest, pumping it up and down. She breathes for him, despite the tang of blood in his mouth. "Come back, please!" she screams, not ready to let him go.

It hurts worse than any pain she has ever experienced. He was her first love, her first kiss the only man she has ever made love to. He is the father of her children and the person she needs the most. He taught her bravery and strength of character and no matter how hard she beats at his chest, and how she breathes for him, Inuyasha won't come back to her.

"Kagome-sama?" Sango peeks around the side of the hut, "oh no…" she runs into the hut holding Kagome around the back, trying to get the Miko off her husband.

Miroku follows next, shaking Inuyasha's limp body. "Wake up!" he yells at him, but Inuyasha's eyes are absent. He's gone.

Rin comes in next, followed by Taisho who immediately falls to his knees. "To-san?" The boy asks. He's twenty now, no longer a child but so childlike as he falls to his knees screaming, "no…no!"

Kagome turns to her son, holding him in his arms. She chokes on her tears. The world is becoming blurry and fading quickly. Her chest beats her pulse in her ears, she can't breathe, can't see, can't live. He's gone.

Yuki, Harutoga and Taiyomaru stand to the side, tears in their eyes. "No," Yuki says covering her mouth.

"I can't," Kagome struggles for breath. She's on her side, "come back…please?"

Hisato enters next. He kneels next to the Miko. "She's bringing the Meido stone."

She can't breathe…the world goes dark.


	41. Sesshomaru Present V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taka and Sesshomaru have a heart to heart about what Tsukimaru told Taka.

It's after midnight when he wakes again to the sounds of a whimpering child. For once he can feel the stale cold of the hospital room. For half the night, his children milled in and out of the clinic. They had to close it for the rest of the day until both he and the girl were dealt with. Taiyomaru eventually came, lending him another hefty donation of blood, but he can't give more for another two weeks or his own supplies will become too low. Natsuki left hours before and all he heard was her screaming at Tsukimaru and Taiyomaru. _Fighting again._

At some point, Nina was brought into his room. The last dregs of the medicine that will heal her, drip into her veins, making her shiver and shake with fever.

After his eyes have adjusted, he stares at the bag that is connected to his arm. He lets his nose do the work for him. The typical herbs are in there, but it now contains blood from both his sons. He wonders how long he will be hooked to this mixture before he succumbs. Katsumoto has been bedridden for a year. Jaken has been sick for longer. Shippo is on his death-bed. Now it's his turn and he is resigned to his fate. Death holds release, but why did she have to come now?

He rubs the crusts from his eye lashes to see better. "You," he looks at the white dog in the girl's lap. "You are in so much trouble."

The dog suddenly changes, and she is his daughter, Taka. She falls on his chest in tears. "Please forgive me, Chichiue. I'm so sorry. Please?" She sobs, no longer the innocent girl who abandoned her parents in the castle. Questions flood his mind. He is torn between anger at her for taking the one that carries Rin's soul and relief that his youngest child is in his arms one last time before he dies.

"Taka," he breathes deeply of the hair on her forehead. He kisses her head and lifts her chin. She smells like the rain of the mountains, crisp and clean and so warm against his cool skin. Her golden eyes are so full of guilt and new lines he hasn't seen before.

"I'm so sorry, Chichiue."

"Do you know who she is?" Taka's eyes dart to the girl in the bed.

"I do." She sits back wiping her nose. "Did you tell Haha-ue about me?" The girl reeks of worry, fear and something else.

"No." He runs his claws through her hair. "Where have you been?" He missed her throughout the years she was gone. Once, centuries before he lost a daughter to premature birth and even that pain barely touched the pain of losing a daughter and not knowing where she was.

"In America," she says. "You need cleaning." She goes to a nearby sink and fills a large bucket with warm water. Her cheeks are tense.

"Has the time finally come where are you giving me baths?" He laughs at the irony. Once he used to help wash her, when she was just a little girl. Taka was his joy, his relief after losing Rin, after losing his mother. She was a happy child who doted on his footsteps and lived wrapped in his mokomoko.

"Haha-ue didn't wash you. We both know the boys never would and Yuki isn't here." She sets the bucket on a chair and gathers his hair, dipping it into the water, removing the blood. "Your whole office knows now."

"I know." He flexes his claws. "I hate killing the smart ones."

"What if they can help you?"

"They can't." He's sure of that. He has been over his notes a hundred times, through epidemiology, everything. He exhales, relaxing as she massages the top of his head. "She used to do this when I would return home," he says of Rin. Natsuki never seemed to be able to anticipate his needs the way Rin did. It was their ritual, even more so after the Healer had turned against them. Rin would take him by the hand, he was helpless to resist. He kissed his children in welcome, plying them with sweets and toys and Rin, she would take him to the hot springs. Their clothing was shed in euphoria, at times they didn't make it to the hot springs until he had taken her. Once he couldn't wait and took her over the table in their private dining area. _My heart,_ he stares at Nina as she writhes and cries. "Taka, you were conceived after her death. How did you know it was her?"

"I…" she stops short, bottom lip trembling and eyes widening in fear.

"She's of Japanese descent," he pushes her to answer, knowing that it is not by coincidence the two are together. "What did you do Taka?"

"Tsukimaru made me," she says rinsing his hair. She flushes red in embarrassment. Taka is so unlike her mother and Yuki who are harsher, colder and have enough attitude to smother an entire herd of elephants.

"What happened?" He attempts to push her hands away from his chest.

"Don't be a baby Chichiue." She slaps his hands down, easily over powering him. "Your weak right now. I could easily take you out myself." She unties the top of his night gown, bearing his chest. "What is this?" Slender fingers run over the root-like scar on his chest. It's been centuries since he saw it last, one more proof the girl in the bed is Rin's reincarnation.

"My connection to her." He stares at the girl in the throes of a wicked fever. She whimpers and cries in her sleep.

"A scar?"

"It's where my bond to her was. My body and soul know it's her." Yet the cruelty doesn't escape him. He will die, while she has barely begun to live.

"You've lost more weight. You aren't eating enough. Did no one take care of you?"

He only laughs. "Was someone supposed to?" Even he can see how gaunt he has become. His ribs poke out of his sides and his stomach is a shadow of what it once was. Rin once prided herself on the shape of her stomach, although his was always more defined. She loved the feeling of his muscles running up and down her skin, now there was nothing but skin and bone.

"What happened between you and Haha-ue, when I was conceived?" Taka's voice is song like, soft like a bird, but laced in hurt.

His stomach pitches. Many things happened the day he went back to Natsuki, many things he was not proud of. "Who told you?"

"Tsuki…" she trails off, unable to finish, breaking his heart. As children, Harutoga and Taiyomaru were easy to speak to. Harutoga told Sesshomaru all his secrets, Taiyomaru spoke infrequently, but spent hours following him around. Yuki…she was the worst. Yuki bottled her emotions and then violently exploded. If judged by today's standards, they would say she had some kind of behavioral health disorder. More than once he had pulled Yuki off of Rin to berate her for hacking into her mother's flesh and it wasn't until China, until their relationship was so fragile it was nearly non-existent did Yuki finally begin to calm and take responsibility for her actions. But Taka, she was always his bird who never stopped jabbering, who clung to his knees and sobbed for him to take her to America too, who acted as if he had never left when he returned for good a century later. "He said you…you raped—"

"I didn't."

"Then what happened?"

He thinks back to that time, bringing the memory forward and begins to tell Taka what had occurred. He swore to Rin, to respect her wishes regarding his relationship with Natsuki. He had the power then to tell Rin to accept that Natsuki was also his, to force her to watch him bed her, but he didn't have the heart to treat Rin as he was a Lord in a castle. He swore to keep his distance from Natsuki but only if Rin made the same oath to allow him to care for Natsuki and Tsukimaru as they needed.

In retrospect, a piece of him regretted making that choice. Rin would always be the one he loved but Natsuki spent more than a century alone in the castle and there were years that he did not see Tsukimaru at all and that never sat well with him.

Natsuki had been in heat for months before Rin's passing. At first the call was a request, when it first began, but as the weeks passed, it became a plea. Months later, he had Natsuki locked in her room when Sato told him that she attempted to bed him. Knowing Sesshomaru's anger and jealously and that Natsuki was not his to copulate with, Sato denied her. Natsuki was fed through a rectangular cut in the wall like an animal and that is where now he knows it was not the right choice. He forced Natsuki to suffer like an animal until Rin's death and no matter the sin Natsuki committed against them, she did not deserve that.

He laid Rin's body under the Sakura tree, immediately after her passing. He stayed long enough to kiss his children and hold his grandchildren. Yuki and Katsumoto had been bonded for close to twenty years at that point. Then he left, into the skies, to Natsuki, to satiate her and himself.

It was not just she that had been suffering in the previous weeks but Sesshomaru as well. His loins were burning, his body on fire, simply because he had ignored his attachment to Natsuki for more than a century and worse, because she was capable of bearing children. When he landed, Tsukimaru was already waiting, angry and pouting. He was just over a century and a half but still very much a child. His body was that of a seven or eight year old.

As he did with his hanyou children, Sesshomaru came with treats and toys. He hugged and kissed his son, so very glad to see him and with an aching heart, turned to Natsuki. He had wanted to mourn Rin, to bask in the pain he felt, but Natsuki needed him and she too was also his lover, equal to Rin in rights but not in love. Rights that he had ignored for the sake of peace in his home.

When he found Natsuki, she had clawed herself from head to toes. Blood dripped from her scalp, pooling around her waist. She cried in the corner, rocking back and forth, cupping her own sex, seeking relief, but as fate would have it, only the burn of male semen quiets the hormonal rage of heat. The moment the door opened, she attacked in a frenzy of euphoria and arousal.

He let her claw his clothing from his body, ignoring the sting of his skin breaking, smashing his mouth into hers. She bit down so hard on his bottom lip it drew blood.

He felt the cyclone of reproductive power building within him, hardening his length, making his blood boil. She was more than ready, but for her part, she was too feral to calm him.

Twice he had mauled Rin in this state, when the power to create a child took over his being. It raced through him like a hailstorm, like the hail in a tornado, beating at his chest and mind and before he knew what was happening, they were on the floor wrestling for dominance. Natsuki would not yield and or not let him in.

They rolled around the floor, him begging her to let him give her what she needed and her screaming for him to stop, that she didn't want him, that she hated him and her hate was not strong enough to break the bond. The next time they rose up, he grabbed both her wrists and flipped her onto her stomach, claws slicing down the sides of her flesh, breaking her skin. His knee forced her legs apart and when he plunged, she screamed in pain. She was so swollen inside, he could barely fit in, making his part so much harder. He shoved again, this time breaking past the barriers, forcing her hips up and wider apart while she cried and shook beneath him. _Sesshomaru please, you're hurting me stop…stop!_

There was no point in stopping…he would not allow another to satiate her and she would not know lucidity again until he finished with her. He buried his nose in her neck, letting her scent wash over him, but even that wasn't enough. With her wrists bound above her head, his fingers dug into her slit, finding an overly swollen jewel to stimulate. She did cry, she did beg him to stop and when he finished, she shrieked again, sobbing that she hated him.

As his own lucidity returned and he witnessed what he had done to her, he felt disgusted with himself. Rin was able to call him back from the monster he became. Natsuki was meant to calm him with her yoki but was too feral to call on it.

He stayed engaged from behind, hovering on top of her, apologizing and then broke down against her back, not because he had hurt her, but because he had left Rin's graveside for this. To fuck like a wild animal, to debase his other lover.

Tsukimaru was too young to understand what had happened between his parents. Sesshomaru knew he carried anger from it, but not like this. Eventually, Natsuki forgave him and he made love to her tenderly and gently, parting her. But in his mind, it was Rin he was making love to, it was her core he tasted, her breath he inhaled, not Natsuki.

A master of lies, he leaves out the last part, that for many years after Rin's death, he tricked his mind into believing he was with Rin, until he knew it was time to let go and move on. And Natsuki… "You'll have to ask Haha-ue why she forgave me."

Taka is in tears and has taken several steps away from him. He doesn't need to ask her to know that she feels betrayed by his actions. "How could you?"

"There was no other way," he mutters. "The instinct for intimacy when one is in heat is blinding, maddening. You don't know it because you have not experienced it. Coupled with the instinct to kill the one that touches what is yours when you are bonded, there was nothing—"

"Bullshit! There was. You didn't have to wait for her to die! You could have had sex with Haha-ue when she first went into heat. It didn't have to be like that!"

"You're right."

"What?"

"I said you are right Taka."

"Then why didn't you? She was old. Rin didn't have to know."

"When did my trickery begin to wear off on you."

"When I didn't tell you about Nina or where I was. Even now, I want to tell Haha-ue I'm here, but I'm scared. I don't want to go back to the castle."

Sesshomaru takes a deep breath in and exhales. "I promised Rin. After the disease, after," _after I nearly destroyed our relationship again._ "I promised."

"Do you love her?" She motions to the fevered child sleeping in the bed.

"She's fifteen," he says quietly. "I don't even know her."

"She knows you." Taka dips the washcloth into the bucket, coming back to him, bringing him peace. Taka sponges off his chest.

"She can't see," he reminds her.

"You have to see this." She walks over to the backpack underneath the girl's stretcher. She pulls out Nina's computer and enters her password. She opens a file. "Look. She learned to type and write stories when she was twelve. She's been writing ever since."

He covers his mouth. As if he needed something else to shock his senses. It was the day that he had taken Rin's virginity by the Sakura tree, down to her trembling hands and how she had to ride him because of her bruised back and the newness of an orgasm she hadn't known about before.

"How does she know this?" There are stories and stories of their time together, how they met, when she found him. They start with an eight year old girl meeting a spirit in the woods, whose description is too close for comfort. As she ages, the scenes become more explicit, the sakura tree, the weeks in what would become their home. A deep pain associated with red flowers and an overwhelming since of love and acceptance from a being with silver hair.

"She's _her_ Chichiue." Taka ties the hospital gown and moves down to his legs. "You soiled yourself."

"Thank you for telling me that Taka, because I can't smell it or do anything about it."

"You're still a grouch Chichiue." She gets up and hugs his neck. "I forgive you."

He avoids telling her there is nothing to forgive, but the words still bring his heart solace. "I hoped to find the cure before this happened," he says, placidly. "What did you do? She was here in Japan wasn't she?"

"She was in Lover's Park." He should be angry with her but he can't bring himself to be. Tsukimaru is another story, but he won't live long enough to take it out on him. "Her parents left her there. They were poor farmers. Tsukimaru was afraid you would fall in love with her and it would hurt Haha-ue but I couldn't leave her. I've watched over her since I left. I made sure she only went to good families. I found ways to escape and make money to pay for the things she needed. I taught her to communicate so she would be easier to place in a foster home and then she got sick. She's terminal, Chichiue." Taka rubs down his legs and cleans the mess he made while he was seizing. It's mostly dried blood and urine, but it warms his heart that his little girl does it without asking. "I wanted to give her a chance. I guess fate wanted you two to meet no matter what. I knew you could heal her."

Fate is cruel. He has days, perhaps weeks, depending on how much damage has been done to his nervous system. This time, she will have to say goodbye to him. "Your mother doesn't know."

"I know," Taka says softly, lifting him up and removing his hospital gown. She pulls the blankets out from around his body, while he moves weakly to let her and then puts new blankets on, including ones from the warmer. "You're freezing."

"I never realized how cold it was in here before," he whispers, eyes always on Nina.

He exhales half furious and half grateful. Nina starts moaning louder. She jolts upright in a panic. He watches curiously as Taka transforms herself into the white dog Lucy again. She leaps onto the bed and nuzzles the girl's hand. The girl calms but then he sees it, the reason she is crying so much. It's not just the fever, white eyes are now brown. She stares down at the dog in her lap like it's the first time she is seeing it. Her hands shake as she touches Lucy. Then she looks at him, blinking and screams and twists around in the bed, refusing Lucy's comfort.

Sesshomaru sits up, painfully closing the back of the gown. Lucy glances up at him and yips. "I'll be fine." He uses the food tray to hold his weight, while he limps to the bed. The entire time Nina's eyes follow his movements. He sits down heavily on the side of her bed. He picks up an otoscope from the wall and turns on the light. Nina cries, trying to block him from flashing it in her eyes. "You can see me can't you?" He says in English then forgets that although that is the language she communicates in, her brain has never heard or seen spoken language. He lifts her hands to his neck and mouth and says it again.

She shakes her head, touching his markings, tracing his moon, his eyes, his cheek bones and his lips. Then fingers enter his mouth and thumbs poke at his fangs. He pushes them out of his mouth. Lucy jumps up and grabs her computer.

"Can you hear me?" Sesshomaru asks her with her hands still in place.

She shakes her head.

"It's okay," he lifts one of her eyelids and then the other. _What happened? The cure doesn't do this._

 _Taiyomaru did it,_ Lucy nibbles his fingers as she confesses.

Sesshomaru's eyes widen, knowing deep inside Nina their bond already waits for completion if Taiyomaru could reach inside and touch it.

Lucy flop the computer on Nina's lap. Nina closes her eyes as she opens it, as if she can only operate it blind. She opens her speaking program. "I know you," it speaks. She puts her hands back on his face, waiting expectant. "I know you."


	42. Mayumi-present IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mayumi waits for answers

**Mayumi-present**

She sits in a room with a bunch of adults talking in words she doesn't understand. There's something about T-cells and Leukocytes and Lymphocytes and stem cells and numbers that make no sense to her or the doctors crowded around a pile of papers on the floor. Haruto Yamamoto and Yoshi lean over a list of results from blood tests they conducted not only on her Uncle but the ones that she and Harutoga unearthed earlier, every blood test that Sesshomaru had ever taken from the past and present. The nurses and the doctors are both baffled.

"The problem is we don't know what is normal," Yamamoto-sama says as Natsuki paces back and forth. "If we knew what was normal, we would understand what we are seeing. Or what these labels mean." Mayumi knows her uncle was fastidious and fearful of ever being discovered. He coded the results in a series of numbers, both from the past and the present. "Like these gene sequences look similar as if they are from the same person, but the changes to the structure of the blood cells is catastrophic if this is normal," he points to one, "and this one isn't. No wonder the organs are failing."

"Whatever," Mayumi mumbles under her breath. It's not that she doesn't care, it's that she doesn't understand. Was there a point to being dragged to another city, away from her grandmother, her school and the few friends she had in Tokyo to come to Osaka and watch Ojisama die? Her legs are crossed one over the other and she kicks one ankle back and forth in worry.

"Were you sick?" Yamamoto asks Natsuki again. Mayumi's gaze shifts to Natsuki.

"Yes, for a while, but it was never as bad. I had half the cure long before anyone else," she wipes sweat from her brow. "Mayumi stop fidgeting, you're making me nervous."

Mayumi starts kicking the leg more dramatically. _Fuck off…_

"Maybe she should leave," Haruto offers, but the thought makes Mayumi sick to her stomach. Ojisama is all she has left of her family and as angry as she is at him for making her come to Osaka, she doesn't want to leave him.

But then she wonders what good any of this will do. How can human doctors do anything for her Uncle when he has spent centuries studying medicine? Lifetimes longer than of the men in this room. "I'm not sure I want to ask how we have blood samples from five hundred years ago, but let's start with the obvious," Yoshi says flipping through the pages. "Something changed your Uncle's blood and the way it functions on a cellular level. The T-cells were in plenty before, they're degraded, the leukocytes, monocytes, all of them. The numbers have drastically changed. Is there anyone else like him that was never sick we can compare too?"

"Tsukimaru and Taiyomaru," Mayumi says quickly.

"Quiet," Natsuki chastises her.

"But they want to help!" she yells back at well…she's not sure what to call Natsuki. She isn't her aunt. Rin was or is, she's not sure how to term it. For the longest time it was normal to go back and forth between the two times and visit her aunt and uncle. Now she is trapped on this side of the Well with her uncle who is a shell of the demon he was before and Natsuki who was a fucking home wrecker whom she hates. Sesshomaru has no energy, no life and definitely not the anger and fire he had before. "Why not let them!?" she shoots back at Natsuki.

"Because it puts us at risk!" Natsuki fumes at them. "You don't understand. If the human world knows we exist, that some of us are more powerful than an army, they could target us _again_. If they knew there was a virus that cripples us, it would be the end…we have to be careful. I'm sorry, if you two can't help, you have to die. Everyone in this office," she says it so simply and honestly it quiets the room until the silence seeps into Mayumi's skin. She means it, she'll hack them to pieces and melt their remains with dokkasu.

"We're looking," Haruto says firmly. "I need more samples. Tsukimaru," he turns to the white haired younger version of Sesshomaru. "That's you right?"

He nods his head, quiet like his father. Mayumi laughs, she's seen when he was quieter.

"And you?" He turns to Mayumi. "What are you?"

"Only a quarter. My father was his brother. My father is a hanyou, half-demon," she says sniffing. She misses her father. Six months is too long, she wants her mother and father back. They had left through the well to take exams for school, kissed their parents goodbye, expecting to return the next day.

"So you were never ill?" Haruto asks. He removes his glasses and rubs his eyes. "The answer is in the bloodwork."

Mayumi shakes her head. How can she explain that she was born on the other side of the well and that now she is here because the thing that connected them stopped working and she can't get through? She glances at her cousins for help. They're older than her now and more wise, rather than children who were younger than her. Yuki is the only one who isn't there. She refuses to leave Katsumoto. Harutoga sits quietly in the corner with Taiyomaru. "And you two?" Yamamoto-sama continues.

"He got sick," Taiyomaru points at Harutoga. "I didn't."

"What's with the ears?" Yoshi points at Izayoi and Harutoga.

"I'm a quarter demon like my sister and Harutoga is Ojisama's son with his human…wife," Izayoi stumbles over the last word knowing how much Sesshomaru hates that term.

"Should have known someone like him would have two wives," Yoshi scoffs. "So who concocted this illness?"

"Come on, they can't figure it out," Mayumi takes her sister's hand. Izayoi goes into her office. Mayumi follows with a brave face on. "Is he going to make it?"

"He's lived longer than he should have," the older sister says. She twists a key in his god-awful oak desk and removes the tattered scroll.

"What is that?" Mayumi asks.

"The person that made the illness," Izayoi says. "Let's go find Ojisama, he never had a chance to read it. I bet if the answer is anywhere it's in here."

"Why?"

"They don't know why his cells are degrading. It's like when someone's poisoned, you can't treat it if you don't know what caused it. The monk that did this, Yashida, it has to be in here. Who wouldn't want to brag about being the one to kill all the demons and how?"

Mayumi jogs after Izayoi. "We should have gone to school there too. We could have learned to read this."

"If he won't read it, his children will. He's just scared."

"Scared of what?"

"Living any longer without Obasan."

"Kami, he's like Romeo."

"No Juliette."

"He's a man."

"Technically he's not a man," Izayoi laughs once they get to the door, "and Juliette was the one that committed suicide first."

"Rin died first, why isn't she Juliette?"

"Because she didn't commit suicide."

"But he's not committing suicide."

"Mayumi, one day you're going to grow up and smell the romance and fresh scent of boys. He loved Obasan so deeply and felt so guilty for everything that happened back then that he's never forgiven himself. If he dies, he won't feel the guilt anymore."

"And if that is her reincarnation then what? Are youkai even reincarnated? She's my age, that's gross."

"He won't pressure her. He never did Obasan."

"You were three when they bonded, how do you know?"

"Because it was always her choice."

She grabs her sister's hand. "Wait I still don't understand how he's Juliette!"


	43. Sesshomaru-Past/Sesshomaru-Nocturne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru mourns Inuyasha 
> 
> Prelude requested on FFN: Nocturne is their last conversation.

**Sesshomaru-past**

It was seeing his brother emaciated and covered in his own blood he didn't expect. It was the blank eyes that seemed to stare at nothing that made his stomach drop. If anything, or anyone was going to kill Inuyasha it was Sesshomaru. Inuyasha's human lover lay next to the dead hanyou, a wreck, _weak,_ came to mind and _pathetic._ But the words were simply there to cover for what he was feeling inside.

Sesshomaru had a warm spot in his heart for Kagome but there was something about seeing her sob over Inuyasha's body, that sent shivers down his spine. Inuyasha was meant to outlive the human, not the other way around.

"Move." His mother elbows him out of the way. She lays her meido stone, onyx and pearled around Inuyasha's neck and then waits. "You've already used Tenseiga once haven't you?"

"Yes," he croaks, a vain attempt to hide his emotions. His hands slink up the sleeves of his black haori to hide the shaking of his fingers. If he was not who he was, he would be on the floor crying with her.

Rin squeezes his hand, hiding her face against his torso and sobbing into his chest. Their children hug each other, seeking comfort from one another. Yuki sobs the loudest, begging her uncle to come back, while Harutoga is quiet and Taiyomaru whispers, "I can't touch his light."

Sesshomaru will not cry, he does not cry. He waits and waits and waits, willing the stone to bring Inuyasha's soul back from beyond, to return his brother to him the same way it did Rin so many years before.

"Why isn't it working?" His mother leans down and touches the stone. "I haven't used this before on him. Why isn't it working?" Even she sounds pained.

His stomach cramps more tightly, until it's wound and painful. Something ominous has been happening the last two years. The attacks, this illness, something is making his skin crawl. A nameless darkness is on the horizon.

"What is that?" Kagome finally notices the stone wrapped around her lover's neck. She leans over Inuyasha's chest, face red, broken blood vessels around her eyes and snot dripping from her nose.

"It's to revive him," Gobodo-sama says, but her face is contorted. "What the hell is happening?" She touches the stone. "It's resisting me."

"Can you do it?" Kagome pleas. Begging doesn't fit the normally strong, upbeat Miko.

"It's not working," Gobodo-sama repeats herself frustrated. "Something is going on." She removes the stone and leaves the hut.

"Mother." He grabs her arm following her out of the hut. "Try again."

"It's not working Sesshomaru." She shakes him off. "Something…do you feel it?" She's been mentioning it for two years now. Something is coming.

He nods, not sure how to describe the darkness brewing, the angst he feels in his heart. She pecks Hisato on the cheek and squeezes his hand. "You be careful." Then she leaves in a cyclone of energy.

"What's happening? Why did she leave?" Rin begs him.

"He's gone," Sesshomaru coughs, covering for the choke of his words.

The hut erupts in more tears. The Miko, the Monk, their children, Taisho, the hut is flooded in a river of tears.

He pushes Rin off feeling like he can't breathe. He leaves and breathes in the spring air panting it in. He leans against a tree for strength. His brother was covered in blood, blisters and succumbed to a stupid human illness. He can't breathe, he can't think. He stops himself from quaking. He picks up Tenseiga and stares at it. _What is happening?_ He flies into the forest, in search of answers. The Meido stone and Tenseiga work in much the same way.

He finds his quarry in the form of serpentine creatures that wrap around his body. He stabs one through the gut, killing it, then hovers over it with Tenseiga. He waits and waits. The bearers to the underworld don't come. He searches for random ogre that still haunt the area. Finding one, he takes its head and tries again. Tenseiga does not answer his call. He swallows hard at his lack of control. _What is happening? Why Tenseiga._

**Sesshomaru-Nocturne**

Time is a scientific construct. Or at least that is what the books on physics say. It can't be broken down and there are an infinite number of outcomes, some good, some bad. He's spent centuries wondering how the world would change if one life, or all lives were saved from the illness that decimated his species? There are no specific numbers, hundreds, thousands, millions, but what he knows is that in the end, they died and that the first victim, patient zero was his brother.

Inuyasha was no longer the hanyou he hated, but his most trusted ally, his confidant and his friend. Something had changed as Rin aged and Inuyasha became more like a brother to her, caring for her in his absence, wiping her tears more often than he did when she was a child. Inuyasha was her confidant, the one who made her a warrior and more importantly, the only one Sesshomaru could turn to for support.

After he took Rin as his lover, Inuyasha became the ally he always wished for. He protected Rin from Touma, helped him fight the Serrow youkai who stole her memories and after that, when trouble came on more than one front, Inuyasha was always there.

Somewhere along the way, the differences, the anger and strife caused by feeling like their father did not love them equally eroded until a genuine love and trust was birthed from the ashes of their hatred. Inuyasha was Sesshomaru's ally, friend, confidant, his blood.

It was Rin that had asked to keep her first pregnancy secret. It wasn't that she was ashamed, but by human standards, she had erred. Their relationship became physical before a human wedding. She never asked for one, therefore they never had one. But during Harutoga's pregnancy, when her hormones and mood swings made her irrational, Sesshomaru would stop by Inuyasha's village. They stayed up late into the night drinking shochi until they were cackling. Kagome as ridiculous as Rin was. She once asked Inuyasha to bring her boar, when he returned instead of being grateful she broke into tears because he had killed a female and not a male. Rin had once sobbed herself to sleep because Sesshomaru brought her white flowers from high on the mountaintops where the snake youkai used to live in his territory. They were lilies, one of her favorites, but instead of being happy, she thought he wanted her to die because white lilies are often planted near human graves. She refused to be comforted until the next morning. Inuyasha understood.

And then the time began to draw near. By his calculations it was somewhere between three to five years after Touma's was killed by Kagome, after Taiyomaru and Tsukimaru were born and he only knew of that time because Kagome and Inuyasha with all four of their children came through the Well to hide from Sesshomaru's wrath. They sinned against him by stealing Rin away, an action that brought back the fire of the woman he loved and should not be changed, but this, what he was about to do, about to let happen, he couldn't. Not without asking his brother first, asking for what he should have then, for absolution.

He spends the night on a red eye from Osaka to Tokyo. It's getting harder to fly on his own and almost invariably ends in a rabid seizure that cripples him for days, leaving him buried in unfinished work. The city lights are blinding at night, but as the runway approaches and he feels the lurch of the landing, he gets off the plane and winds his way slowly through the hundreds of people milling in the airport.

As he exits, he finds the nearest dark corner to hide in and disappears, flying from the airport to their house. He isn't alone. Someone else has been there watching them for him, memorizing their coming and going so that he could pinpoint the exact moment to approach Inuyasha, to offer to save his life.

He lands just outside the shrine to find Shippo hiding in the branches of Goshinboku. He's no longer a boy, but a man with short spiky red hair, long pointy ears and claws on the tips of his fingers. His fur is longer now, covering his stomach and back, running down his shoulders, so unlike the child that followed them around before. Sesshomaru flies into the branches and sits down in the boughs of Goshinboku, passing an uneasy smile to the kitsune. "Let me see him again?" Shippo begs. "For more than just playing tricks."

"No," Sesshomaru's answer comes out short and harsh.

"But I didn't get to say goodbye before!" he protests.

A part of Sesshomaru wants to rebel from the rigidity of the life he has led. Always dancing between the truth and a lie, to save something he is unsure of. "No," he repeats himself more quietly.

"Then explain how what you are doing is any different than me saying goodbye?" Tears puddle at the side of Shippo's green eyes, making Sesshomaru question the sanity of his choice and filling his heart with lead.

"Because he will not choose to alter the path of time."

"Why are you so obsessed with not changing anything? We can save them, all of them! Why can't we bring Tatsuo-"

"Stop." He can't hear that name, not without it sending shivers up his spine and clenching his heart. He has asked himself the same things many times. If he had a connection to the past, is he obligated to change it? Should he change it? But the cycle always comes back to there is never an action without a reaction. He knows the name of the monk was Yashida and that he was trained under Ungai, who detested his kind and that rumors and historical documents stated that their fate was sealed in part because of the confrontation Sesshomaru had when Rin was a child. "Have you ever considered that it was meant to be? The well closed for ten years. If salvation were to come, it would have come from the future. Tenseiga and the Meido stone stopped working to bring the dead back into the land of the living. If we change it, what happens? Do we cease to exist altogether? Will we change the passage of time and send the world into darkness?"

"You are so literal," Shippo harrumphs but the he sighs. "I'm staying in the tree."

Sesshomaru rolls his eyes. "When is he coming?"

"Soon. She said that he had to run back to grab something. Kagome ran to go grab some medicine from the pharmacy, taking all the kids with her, so no one should go inside."

Sesshomaru nods and slides out of the tree, landing on designer label leather shoes that make his feet ache at times. It's still the middle of the night, a night so dark and devoid of stars and black like his soul feels in this moment. The door is unlocked. He walks into a brightly lit apartment, what used to be the old hut that housed the well and then he lands inside the darkened shaft, waiting and wondering.

Light surrounds him, bathes him, and makes his skin crackle just before his brother, the once pathetic hanyou, the warrior who made him who he is today forms in front of him. He's holding a kimono in one arm and a package in the other. Inevitably as he asks, "Sesshomaru?" The elder brother waits for recognition to kick in. He looks like him, smells similar to him and is all the same, not him at the same time. "What? Where did you?" the words stumble out of his mouth, but then his head cocks to the side and lips break apart in a look that screams dumbfounded. "You…you're not? But…"

"Do you plan on completing a sentence Ototo?" It's meant to come out with malice but is little more than a gesture as he closes the gap between them and throws his arms around Inuyasha. "It's been so long," his voice breaks lightly and he blinks back tears that he has refused to shed for centuries.

The hanyou's body stiffens, tightens against the hold. "Okay buddy, okay," Inuyasha pats his brother's back, awkwardly. "Okay…um. What?"

Sesshomaru takes a step back and says quickly, "I can't stay long. Your wife will return and this conversation, she cannot hear."

"Why am I going to die?" he retorts, in typical Inuyasha fashion and Sesshomaru feels like someone has just shoved Tetsusaiga through his heart, twisting it for good measure. "Kami," he says, breathlessly. "When?"

Long ago, he gave up fighting emotions, fighting feelings. If he had not given into them, he would never have known real love and connection with Rin. Tears are no longer a sign of weakness, love is no longer for fools, only an older brother who missed the death of the younger one that he held so high in esteem. "Soon," he whispers and again it clogs his heart.

"Soon?" Inuyasha repeats, setting down his burdens and leaning against the wall. "In battle? Like I fight some giant ogre? A youkai?"

Sesshomaru shakes his head and tries to swallow the lump forming in his throat. "Sickness."

"Sickness?"

"Would you stop answering in questions!" Sesshomaru snaps, if for nothing more than to relieve the tension he feels. He covers his face with his hands and shakes his head. "This is harder than I thought it would be."

"Why…I mean, what," he exhales sharply, "I can't answer without asking."

"Just listen," Sesshomaru begs him and he begins the tale of how a monk they had both had a run in with began to hate their kind, how the well closed and that Tenseiga and the Meido stopped working and deep inside he has known all along that he cannot change what has happened. "I give you the choice. I can infect you now and administer the cure so that when it comes you will be immune or—"

"I die," Inuyasha fills in for him.

"You die," he mutters sadly, because it already happened.

"What happens to Kagome? My children?" the words come out pained and tired.

"Sota and Taisho live. They never become sick. Izayoi and Mayumi, I'm not sure. They were gone the length of the disease, stuck on this side. I assume raised by Kagome's mother."

Inuyasha nods and the audible sound of his swallowing the information eats at Sesshomaru's soul. "Kagome?"

"She lived in my home until the disease stopped and then she left."

"Did she find another?"

"No," Sesshomaru answers somberly. "There was one that she found companionship with but not love. Their relationship was short lived."

"And you? What do you get out of this?"

Sesshomaru's eyes snap up, because there was something he wanted out of it. "Absolution for the years of torment and thanks, for who I am now. Losing you, gave me the strength and the passion I needed to become who I am now."

"And who are you now?" Inuyasha asks with a sincerity and curiosity that drives the knife in deeper.

"A doctor, healer of sorts. I treat cancer and leukemia in humans. Both deadly."

"You are the biggest hypocrite, you know that? First you have hanyou babies with a human and then you heal the ones you hate."

"Is it really that bad brother?"

"It's just not what I expected."

"Neither what I expected," Sesshomaru chuckles in return.

"What's the cure?"

"I can't tell you."

"You won't try to save the others?"

"Can't. There is no action without consequences and I don't know what consequence there would be to stopping it and the cure, the cure exists now but not the disease."

"Then kill the monk—"

"NO!" Sesshomaru shouts. "No."

"Why?"

"Because you do not know what will change if we do. All of it, the well closing, Tenseiga and the Meido, it was our time to pass."

Inuyasha growls and flops against the wall. "How long do I have to decide?"

"Until your lover returns and whatever the choice is, she cannot know. I will not risk the entirety of history, of anything, to change what has already happened."

"And if I choose to live?"

"Then I accept the consequences," Sesshomaru replies quickly, but already knowing what the answer would be.

"She'll be okay?" Inuyasha presses, "Kagome?"

"It will hurt but she lived happily."

"Lived?"

"She passed long ago, a happy old woman. Your sons went on to have families of their own. I can only assume the girls decided to remain on this side of the well. Your family continued on."

"But you didn't," Inuyasha supplants his thoughts.

"How could I?"

"Rin's dead too isn't she?"

"Long ago."

"I don't like this," Inuyasha speaks tepidly.

"Neither do I." He covers his eyes, rubbing them and then his cheeks. "Make your choice."

Silence fills the air around them, a pregnant pause so full it nearly bursts. "You know if we fucked up the timeline, maybe Kagome wouldn't be born, Naraku could win or maybe some other bad comes. She'll be okay?"

"She will be okay," Sesshomaru assures him again. "She lived with me for ten years after your death and after that, she found a place for herself in the mountains. She will be okay."

"She's going to hate me," Inuyasha admits sourly.

"She will never know," Sesshomaru whispers. "I'm so sorry ototo." And then his heart breaks, the last crack of someone who has carried pain for too long. "Forgive me." He covers his eyes, the tears he should have shed when Inuyasha died, the ones he kept hidden, the ones that ached more than others. "Forgive me. I couldn't save you."

"Hey." And is if centuries haven't separated them, their arms wrap around each other, the embrace that should have happened centuries ago, the first and the last.


	44. Rin-Past VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rin mourns Inuyasha

**Rin-past**

She doesn't follow Sesshomaru. So much time together by now she knows his moods. He finds solace in solitude and quiet. She kneels down with Kagome, comforting the mourning Miko. She holds her dear friend the same as she did when they mourned the child Kagome miscarried. She strokes Kagome's hair and covers her own mouth.

That time was the first time Rin had held a partially formed infant in her hands. Samurais attacked the village. Sesshomaru had been gone for months, refusing to return. Angry at her for risking her life he had said, but really for growing up.

The miko tripped and fell, landing on her side. The stress from running brought the labor on too soon. They were barely able to get to the well before the baby emerged from between Kagome's legs and Rin, only thirteen at the time, used herbs to stop the bleeding and keep the Miko alive.

Kagome holds tight to her sons. Sayako and Sota have finally arrived to mourn Inuyasha. Tatsuo doesn't understand why Ji-san won't get up. He shakes him and begs him, but Tatsuo is just a child. He doesn't see what everyone else does.

The friends sit together until the fire burns low and Sesshomaru returns. He doesn't speak. He lifts his brother's body and carries him through the forest. A line of mourners follow behind him. First Kagome then Taisho and Sota with his lover and child, then Sango and Miroku, their children that still live in the village and Rin with her children.

"Ka-san?" Yuki sobs behind her, "it hurts."

She can't say it will be okay, because it's not. She can't speak, because what words comfort the loss of one so dear? She hugs her daughter, her sons and seeks her lover's eyes. He sets the body down in front of Goshinboku and removes his brother's katana. He sniffs, she knows he is fighting his own emotions. The spell is broken. He can touch Tetsusaiga. Kagome takes it from him and hands it to Tatsuo. "He wanted you to have this," the Miko breaks into tears again. "Inuyasha," she sobs into her palms. She kneels down and removes the robe of the fire-rat from her dead lover and then gives it to Taisho. "He said you should have this. He wanted…to…to…" She can't finish.

"To make sure you were protected," Sesshomaru finishes for her. He digs with his own hands, turning up the dirt.

Rin comes up from behind him and kisses his shoulder. "I'm sorry my love," she chokes out and then her hands join his. Each wave of dirt they remove from the earth is a discord of broken notes. The Monk joins in, their children, Sango, Kagome, Taisho and Sota, then the children. He is laid to rest beneath Goshinboku. She doesn't know how to comfort him. She tries to hug him, he pushes her off. She tries to take his hand and he refuses. She holds back the hurt in her own heart. Can he not see that she is aching too?

She turns to Kagome. "Come live with us?"

"What?" The Miko wipes her eyes. "I can't, the village…the Well...my daughters."

"Oka," Taisho takes her hand, "there's nothing left here. I'm…sorry," he stammers out to Miroku and Sango. "I'm there, your niece and nephews. Come live with us. There's space. We can make a home for you. Please?"

"I think it's better, or you can come live with me? But we don't really have huts, just caves. I don't think you'll be so comfortable with us," Sota says, holding his son who is cradling Tetsusaiga.

"I'll miss you Kagome-sama, but I agree. You have family in Sesshomaru's home and you can help maintain the barrier," Miroku tries to encourage her.

"Okay," she says the words, but no sound is made. "Onisama?"

Rin observes as he is brought out of the fog of leaning over his brother's grave. "You're welcome in my home. As always," then he walks into the trees.

Rin trails after him, "Sesshomaru?" She wants comfort, she wants to give solace, but he keeps his distance. "Sesshomaru please!" She grabs his hand forcing him to face her, "please?"

He shakes his head maintaining his distance.

The rebuff hurts her. "I don't understand…tell me, please?"

He takes her right hand and places it over his heart. She knows what's coming. He can't speak, so he allows her to feel his emotions. They break into her senses like a damn that can no longer hold back the river. It aches, it burns, it breaks her. She ends up on the forest floor covering her mouth. "I'm so sorry," she says as he lands on the floor with her. She wraps her arms around his neck, pulling his face to the warm space between her ear and shoulder. "I'm so sorry."


	45. Sesshomaru-Present VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru and Nina finally get to speak.

**Sesshomaru-present**

Izayoi bursts through the door just as Nina recognizes him. The actions startles both Nina and Sesshomaru out of the spell they were under. He was lost looking into her eyes. So similar to Rin's. The same deep brown that would greet him when returned home, that would light up when she smiled, that held his soul for a century and a half.

He always wondered what would happen if he found the vessel carrying Rin's soul. He knew it would happen eventually, it had to.

But, it breaks his soul all over again seeing her like this. The scars around the eyes are from burns. He can tell by the white spiderwebs that that twist from her lids out to her brows. She was most likely born deaf, or rendered deaf shortly after birth. She can't speak and he wonders if this is her doom. Is she destined to suffer before he meets her? Is he her protector in this life as he was in the past?

But she is fifteen, a taboo and he may not survive the next few days. It would be unfair for them to be anything now but the doctor meant to treat her and the patient, an acquaintance, certainly not a friend. But he can't help himself. She has Rin's memories and the hole in his heart has only grown with time. A bleeding wound that none can bandage.

"What are you doing out of bed? Are you stupid?" Izayoi throws the scroll onto his bed and grabs his arm. She wraps it over her shoulder while Mayumi does the same on the other side. "You need to stay in your own bed," Izayoi scolds him like he's a child. He lets them take his weight, because his own legs are too wobbly to support him.

They deposit him like a pathetic sack of potatoes, back in his own bed and pull the cover over his legs. "Natsuki wants to kill everyone," Mayumi tells him, nonchalantly.

"We may have to," he exhales leaning back on the soft pillows, feeling instant relief from the pain he's in. He avoids making eye contact with Nina, but he watches her shift and lay down. Lucy, Taka rather curls into the girl's belly and nuzzles Nina's chin. _Thank you, Taka,_ he emits to her.

Lucy nods her furry white head and kisses Nina's chin. _She's mine now,_ he hears Taka's willowy voice in his mind. _I'll always take care of her._

He nods, exhausted, only wanting to sleep.

"Read it, please?" Izayoi begs, lifting the scroll up and putting it on his stomach.

 _That's right,_ he remembers forlornly, _Yashida…_

His hands have not stopped shaking since he woke up. Holding the dusty yellow scroll is only making the tremors worse. Not because of the sickness, but because for centuries, he has theorized how a human could make a disease that his kind was not immune too, that could spread through surface contact and bodily fluids. More than once he asked himself what his race had done to deserve the genocide of their species. Was it some great evil? There were good and bad in them like every race that walked the earth. Sesshomaru never actively attacked humans that didn't deserve death in his eyes. Night robbers, rapists and murderers were his often sought targets. His father protected entire human villages. What could they have possibly done that all were given a death sentence?

"Was he scared when he died?" Izayoi asks. She can't let go of her father. Neither can Sesshomaru. She has used working in his office as a ruse to hide her emotions and he knows it but their time together is running short. Soon he will leave her and join his brother in the beyond.

"No," that much Sesshomaru was sure of. "Weak."

"Oji-sama!" Izayoi tries to slap his shoulder but her hand is caught.

Even with unsteady hands, his reflexes are in check. "I do not mean it as an insult. He was weak. He passed before I got there," Sesshomaru stops, forcing the memory from his mind. He had visited only weeks before Inuyasha had passed. He left at night when Rin was sleeping, under the cover of darkness to avoid unnecessary skirmishes with the monks and mikos. They drank tea, they laughed until Inuyasha cried in pain. They were what they should have been from the moment the hanyou was born, brothers.

"Who was with him?" Mayumi cries anew, weeping again for the father who died centuries ago to Sesshomaru but only months before to them.

It's harder than anything he has ever done, answering her. It's worse than the time he told a mother with twin sons that they both were going to die from the same strand of Leukemia and they were too sick to receive treatment. Or the time he told a wife that her husband's body had rejected the procedure and he bled out all over the white floors of his office. The blood had seemed that much more red, splashed against the egg-white flooring. "Your mother," he says quietly. "Shh little one," he says in Mayumi's ear. "He wouldn't want you to spend your life mourning him," he wraps her in his embrace, giving her the comfort he should have given Rin in the forest that night, instead of rejecting her and pushing her away.

"Really?" she is incredulous. She is confused. She is a child who doesn't know any better. She wipes her nose on her sleeve. She knows her father and uncle spent more time hating each other before they found fondness, but at fifteen, Mayumi is not nearly as mature as Kagome or Rin were at this age.

"Use a tissue." He passes her a box. "We had our differences Mayumi. We found forgiveness. He was my most trusted ally, my friend, my brother."

"Open it Oji-sama," Izayoi puts her own hands on the scroll, encouraging him.

"It won't change what happened," he reminds her as his hands finally force the first portion of the scroll open.

"I'll know my father's killer," she says with so much conviction it makes him balk. "Oji-sama, what if we get sick?" Izayoi holds his hand like she did when she was a little girl. She paints her claws to hide them. Today they are covered in bright yellow fingernail polish with lavender stripes crisscrossing the panels.

"You two don't have enough yoki to get sick." He smiles relieved, remembering that her brothers never fell ill and it was a good thing they didn't. Without Taisho and Sota in the final battle, his village would have been wiped out. Taking a deep breath, he gazes at the first lines of the scroll. If his pride were not still intact, Sesshomaru would admit that anxiety courses through his veins, staring at the words.

Izayoi quiets. Her eyes do what her hands can't. They slash up and down the page of the scroll, devouring the words. She holds onto her uncle's hand.

To his surprise, although nothing should surprise him anymore, he does the same. The answer is here, it has to be. He grips her slender fingers in his and begins reading the scroll.

Izayoi had asked once after she learned the role that Taiyomaru and Tsukimaru's blood plays in controlling his seizures, why he never sent the cure back with her mother. If he knew it was coming, why didn't he stop it?

"I hate you," Mayumi pushes herself up abruptly. "You're such a coward."

"Mayumi," Izayoi tries to stop her.

"You had the cure here the whole time, you never used it!" she screams at him. He should have noticed her festering, seething beneath the surface. It was obvious in the way she behaved, the outbursts, getting kicked out of classes, stealing. All along he knew the risk when he took them, that if they discovered his inaction, the nieces that used to dote on him, walk in his footsteps and worship his presence would one day hate him.

He stops a hand from connecting with his face, but just barely. His strength is waning.

"Mayumi," he warns her.

"You're a coward. You had it here all along, why didn't you save him? Why didn't you save my To-san?" She cracks like a clay jar against a marble floor. "You could have saved him!"

"We tried," he remembers how he suddenly became painfully aware that Tenseiga was no longer working, on youkai that was.

"I hate you!" Mayumi screams at him crying. "Why didn't you save him! You bastard!" she shrieks, trying to get out of Izayoi's grasp. "You could have told Ka-san when the illness would start. You could have given him the cure!"

"I am not a god!" Sesshomaru roars back, wishing he could stand. "There was no way to save him without altering the fabric of time itself. Do you think if fate wanted us to exist that I wouldn't have reversed every death with Tenseiga? Our time is over!"

"Fucking coward!" Mayumi screams at him, trying to beat him with her fists. Hijin Kesou come flying at his face. He bats them off and the white blades that come after.

"Stop it!" Izayoi has had enough. She flicks her wrist and binds her sister in her whip. She can only manage it from one hand but it's strong enough to throw her sister to the floor.

Nina glances at them, staring like they are crazy. She scrubs her eyes out. "Get her out of here," he orders the older sister. Izayoi pulls Mayumi out of the room.

The girl across from him still has cherry red cheeks and face that looks miserable. The light is low, he's supposed to be sleeping. He gazes at the clock, it's four the morning. There is an orange glow in the room. Lucy still snuggles on the girl's waist. Nina tries to stand.

"Don't get up," he warns her.

Her legs buckle the moment she sets them down. She ends up on the floor leaning heavily on the white dog.

"You can't hear me, or understand me." He pinches the bridge of his nose. He lowers the arm to his own bed and tests his feet. They hold him as he shakily walks across the floor, dragging his IV pole with him. He kneels down weakly, wrapping his arms around Nina and lifts her back into her bed. He sets her fingers against his face and says, "Stay in your bed." He walks around to the back of the bed and releases the break. He pushes her bed next to his and engages the break again before he sits back down in his own.

It's close enough now she is able to scramble out of her bed into his. Her hands immediately trace the markings on his face. She picks up her computer, closing her eyes again to make it work. She types something in. "I dream about you. You're real? I'm not dreaming?"

She puts her hands on his lips and jawline. "I'm real."

She rubs her eyes again. "How?" the computer reads to her.

"You have the soul of my dead human lover," he answers her, running his fingers along her wrists. "And her memories."

She touches his face again. He feels his breath quicken. Only Natsuki has been this close to him in the previous years. "What does that mean?" Her hands go back and forth between the computer that speaks for her and his face to understand his speech.

"Nothing," he says quietly. Tone is not important. She can't hear him anyway. What can he give her anyway? Another life where she must share him with Natsuki or even worse, watch him die.

She pets the dog next to her and says. "I feel terrible."

He touches her forehead, feels her pulse then cups her chin. "It will end soon."

"I'll live?"

"Yes," he sighs, leaning against the bed.

"I didn't know doctors could get sick," the computer says flatly.

"You need a different voice for that program." Sesshomaru laughs, picking up the computer. "Something less mechanical." He flips through the voices until he finds a female voice with a British accent. He never liked the American ones. He hands it back to her as she positions her hands again. "Are your eyes okay?"

"It's bright," the new female voice answers. "You're really a demon?"

"We call it yokai." Sesshomaru licks his lips, inadvertently hitting one of her fingers. The taste is so close to Rin's it makes him catch his breath. He glances at the bag that is connected to him. He will never be able to be without an IV now. "I'm going to have to get a central line."

She pulls down the front of her hospital gown and points to her own catheter sticking out of her chest. He touches her skin, massaging the irritation with his thumb. "You've been sick for a while?"

She nods her head and shrugs her shoulders. "I'll live?"

He nods to her. "A good life."

"And you?" she wonders.

He shakes his head, wondering if she understands the gesture. She does, because he can hear her furiously typing on her computer.

"You can't die. I just found you. I've spent my whole life dreaming about you. I thought they were just fantasies…but…you're supposed to love me."

He starts laughing in earnest, forgetting how cheeky and romantic teenage girls are. "I'm no lover. If you truly have her memories, you know that I cannot give you what you want. I am already connected to one. I will not break my bond to her and even if I did, the moment she becomes fertile again, I will go to her, whether it would hurt you or not. I have a duty to what is left of my kind. You will heal and return to America and live your life. Find some American boy to love you and give you the life you deserve."

She shakes her head. "What's the point? When I'm stuck with the memories of how you loved her?"

"Do you have all of them I wonder? The entire century and a half that we were together?"

"It was that long?" She rubs her eyes again.

"Lucy," he pats the dog, "go find some gauze bandages. The long ones."

The dog hops off the bed and rummages through one drawers, picking up the gauze. She brings it back to him and then jumps into the spare bed again. Sesshomaru wraps a few layers over Nina's eyes. "They're going to be surprised when they come in the morning."

"Kiss me?" the computer chirps.

Lucy growls at her father, baring her teeth, a clear threat if he dares follow through with the request.

He shakes his head.

"I've never been kissed." Her face is redder.

"You are not old enough by Japanese Law or American Law."

"And you are how old?"

He kisses the tip of her thumb hoping it will assuage her. "Older than that. You don't have all her memories. Not yet," he mutters against her fingers. "Go to sleep."

"Memories of what?"

"You'll find out." He leans back, removing his face from her hands. "Keep your yoki and scent inward and Haha-ue won't know it's you, Taka. We'll speak before she is allowed to leave." He laces his hands behind his head and allows himself to drift into sleep. He's exhausted, soon he won't be able to stand and it's only a matter of time. He touches his stomach, he can already feel it roiling, it bubbles into his throat. He leans over the side of the bed and heaves. Blood splatters onto the white floor. He coughs trying to catch his breath. _Make it quick…_ he prays… _just make it quick._


	46. Yuki-Past III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuki tries to save her best friend's mother.

**Yuki-past**

Rei-chan is her best friend and now Shiori too. The three of them spend all their time together. They run through the orchards, leaping from branch to branch. Rei-chan can jump highest because her father is a rabbit demon and her legs bent funny like a bunny. Before Katsumoto can catch them making mischief in the village, Shiori raises a barrier and they snicker that he can't catch them.

Shiori has a crush on Katsumoto. Ka-san says that means that Shiori thinks Katsumoto is cute, but Yuki doesn't understand that. To her, he's just an annoying dog-breath that keeps her from having fun and whom she loves to frustrate in return.

One day she leads him on a wild goose chase around the village laying false scent trails for him to follow while she hides with her friends. Another day she finds the green powder that Ka-san keeps hidden in a cellar beneath the supply closet and throws it in his face. It only lasts an hour until Ka-san finds out and gives him the antidote. That time, Chichiue doesn't punish her because he's spent the entire morning in his study. Since Ojisan passed away, Chichiue is quiet, except for when he's yelling and he barely leaves the room.

At night she watches him through a crack in the door. He reads the books from the future, the ones about viruses, diseases and immune systems. When he's not looking, Yuki tries to read them too, but the symbols aren't the same as the ones she's used to, so she leaves the books alone. He's only caught her a few times. Instead of yelling, Chichiue pulls her into his lap and tickles her belly making her laugh. He says nothing, a silence so cutting it touches her chest and makes it hurt, but he tickles too and that makes her giggle. When she laughs, his face cracks into a small smile.

Adults are even worse than children at hiding how they feel. Maybe it's because they think she won't notice.

Like Obasan who moved in with them after Ojisan died. They were already building a new wing for guests. Instead this one has three rooms, one that has become Obasan's. But Obasan doesn't leave the room. All she does is cry for Ojisan. The only one that can make the tears stop is Taisho. He takes her for walks along the barrier, down to the river and into the Orchard. Once a month they go back to the Well, hoping it will open. Yuki thinks they should give up, but then when she does, her stomach clenches and she feels sick.

She and Mayumi were close friends. They liked to play tricks on kids in Mayumi's village. Especially Hideki and his wife. Hideki, Mayumi told her once, wanted to marry Rin, but Rin was never interested. If Ka-san wanted to marry someone it would have been Kohaku, not Hideki. So the two planted stink bombs in his hut and soured his rice paddy once.

Today, Yuki runs through the orchard, helping the villagers gather the produce to feed the village. The children who can reach the highest branches without a ladder are put to work. For Yuki it's simple to jump from branch to branch, clipping the stems with her claws. The girls giggle together because Shiori can't climb like they do but she can lift other children up on the top of a barrier and bounce them like Shippo when he's a pink chubby ball.

In the village a birthing happening. The mother is human. Yuki hears her screams from the top of a tree, just before she frees a set of peaches. The sound stops her movements. She knows the sounds a woman should make from helping her mother deliver babies.

Yuki hears another shriek. She knows it's Rei-chan's mother, Elaine from the sound of the pitch. Her hearing has become more acute in the last year. They are having their third child. Something sounds wrong as the screams crescendo then diminuendo into a pathetic mewl. Yuki jumps out of the tree and trots towards the hut with her two friends behind her. She doesn't bother telling Dogface to follow her. The screams are getting weaker and there won't be much time to save the baby.

Rei-chan cries when she sees there is blood all over the hut. Rei-chan runs for her mother, but Shiori holds her back. Shiori is older than both the girls by two decades but they are the same size as many of the hanyou children in the village. Yuki squeezes through the throngs of women and sees the problem. The feet are coming but the rest of the body is stuck. Elaine is losing too much blood. "Katsumoto!" she yells for her guard. He is ever her shadow and her worst nightmare.

He lands in the entrance, clearly appalled by what he is seeing.

"Get Chichiue and Tenseiga quickly." She runs into the hut and shoves Akari to the side. Chichiue has shown her how to do this many times.

"What are you doing?" Akari asks her. "The head is stuck. I can't get it out." The hanyou fire-cat's face is pained.

Yuki closes her eyes, she opens her hands and slashes into the belly, carefully. She once watched her mother do this on another human who was birthing a hanyou. It killed the mother, but Chichiue was there with his sword. She feels carefully for the baby. "You're going to kill her!" Akari yells at Yuki.

"I'm going to save them both." She reaches her hands inside the cavity and pulls the wiggling baby out while blood pools around the sides, falling down the bloated belly. The baby starts crying almost immediately once it's freed from its mother. But then the thought hits Yuki, Tenseiga isn't working and she wonders if she killed her best-friend's mother.


	47. Sesshomaru-Past X

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru is betrayed by Tenseiga

**Sesshomaru-past**

He sits in a highbacked chair in his study, surrounded by Jaken, Ichiro from the East and Kensaku from the West. Kensaku was warned when the messenger was sent that violating their previous agreement would lead to a deadly end. For that reason, outside the door are several sentinels.

Sesshomaru took no chances when the meeting was called. Rin does not know what happened between him and Natsuki. She cannot know.

Rin sits cross legged in the corner listening to the argument. "What do you mean illnesses?" Sesshomaru tries to understand. Weeks before the messengers came from his allies, begging him for a cure to an illness that sounded all too familiar.

"I have ten cases in the West, a fever, then blisters. Katsumoto's father had something similar but was able to beat it. Three of them have succumbed," Kensaku's voice is cold, concerned and shaking. "Sesshomaru-sama we do not succumb to illnesses. Poison aside, we don't get sick!"

"We've had twelve cases, five are dead, the same," Ichiro, with flaming orange hair interjects. "Fever, a rash and it ends in vomiting blood. I heard your brother died of the same thing."

The wound is too fresh for Sesshomaru. It still burns, aches inside his chest. The mere mention of Inuyasha, send him into a flurry of emotions he staunches with anger. Grabbing Ichiro by the neck, he hisses, "do not speak of him."

"Sesshomaru-sama?" Jaken raises his hands, "the Kappi…my people, twenty seven cases and eleven are dead. Herbs don't work. They've seen many healers. I need to return to them."

"Leave, Jaken."

The question lingers in his mind. He touched his brother's body, carried it to Goshinboku. If he were going to fall to the illness, it should have transferred. What his allies are describing is a communicable disease, but how it's being passed, he lacks the resources to discover.

Jaken bows, hurried, worried and runs out of the room.

Darkness brew in Sesshomaru's mind. He had thought the disease that took Inuyasha was a fluke, but now, it's spreading.

"Sesshomaru-sama!" The door flies open, nearly smacking into Rin. She folds her knee up to miss getting hit by the corner. Katsumoto rushes through the door, eyes glazed in concern. "You are needed in the village. Elaine has died during birth."

"No!" Rin screams loudly, covering her mouth. Elaine was one of the first to come to their home. Elaine was not from their lands, but her husband is. He was taken from his home as a boy and raised in a land where people have hair like straw and eyes like the sky. She is the mother of Yuki's best friend.

Sesshomaru rises. "Go back to the children," he dismissively orders the dog demon.

"Yuki is waiting for you. She cut the baby from the mother's stomach," Katsumoto insists, approaching Sesshomaru.

"Leave," he inflects, his voice sharper. Tenseiga is not working, it cannot work. Elaine will have to be buried and he will comfort Rin later.

"Aren't you at least going to try?" Rin stands up to him. She picks Tenseiga up from the corner where he has refused to wear it since Inuyasha's death. It's gathered dust around the hilt, a useless heirloom. "Sesshomaru. Please?"

All heads turn to her. In public she knows how to address him. She is not being submissive as she is meant to be. He stares into her eyes, trying to understand what he is being told and what he is supposed to do about it. How can a disease kill his people? He stands, stalking to her. He forcefully takes her by the arm, Tenseiga and all into the hallway, then into an empty room several doors down, where their voices will not be heard. He slams the door behind them. "You speak to me with that much disrespect-"

"What is wrong with you?!" she shouts at him, ripping her arm out of his reach.

He isn't sure. They have been fighting again. He has not made love to her in weeks, not since his brother died. He's barely left his study. He is unsure of the nights and days. A hole has formed in his stomach where food should be eaten, but he can't. Food tastes like dust, water like poison.

The book Kagome gave him all those years before, he's read over and over and cannot find the answer to how something so small and insignificant as a germ could kill his brother. The silence has created a rift between he and Rin. When they do speak it's like this. "You know how you are meant to address this Sesshomaru in public."

"I know that the yokai I loved would not be standing here, worrying about his honor when someone in the village needs him!" Her eyes are red, they have not ceased being red since they returned. He hears her crying at night but he refuses to comfort her for he cannot even comfort himself.

"It is not working!" his voice rises at her in a fury. Does she not understand? The katana is useless now.

"Please just try? Why should they lose their mother?"

"She's already dead."

"And Yuki is there by herself. Do you care nothing for your daughter? What is wrong with you? You've been so cold and uncaring. You don't eat, you're not sleeping and you haven't left your study! It's not going to bring your brother-"

He slams her back first into the wall, holding her face in his clenched hand. "Do not speak of him." He can't control the anger in his voice, the clenching of his teeth or the yearning to see her blood on the ground.

She cries in pain. "I'm getting sick of this." Tucking her feet into her chest, she kicks his stomach, throwing him back into the wall. "You cannot treat me like a piece of garbage you find in the street. If you won't use this katana, I will find someone who will. Someone with more honor than you, selfish bastard!" She picks up the katana and storms away, gripping the back of her head.

He grabs her wrist before she can leave with the katana, angered at her comment. "You will not speak to me like that."

"If you lay hands on me like that again Sesshomaru, I warn you, I will not stay here. Either come and help me, or let me find someone else to use your father's sword." She drops the katana into his palm.

Anger bubbles underneath the surface at her impudence. She has no respect for him, for the role he must play to keep her safe. Why can't she understand? He has sacrificed his life, his honor, his essence to be with her. He wraps an arm around her waist and lifts her into the air, out the nearest window and they fly to the village. He lands in a throng of people who immediately part for him like waves.

Yuki comes running from the house. "I killed her!" She flies into her mother's waiting arms. "I forgot it's not working!"

"Chichiue will try, won't you?" Rin stares him down with eyes that make him regret how he just spoke to her. Anger, if he can hold onto it, losing Inuyasha won't hurt so badly.

He glares back, forcing himself to staunch the regreat.

He walks through the villagers into the hut, where Elaine lays with blank eyes staring at the ceiling. The new infant is squawking in the arms of the Rabbit-demon father who holds his other two children as they sob for their mother. For a moment, he pictures himself holding his children over Rin's dead body. It will happen one day. She is mortal, she will not outlive him. The thought makes his fingers sweat, his claws tremble.

He unsheathes the katana and waits. He stares at her dead body, summoning the compassion to save her. She is the mother of his daughter's best friend. Rei and Yuki have played together from the moment they met at nine months. Elaine is fair haired and not from Japan. They were run out of their own country and travelled for months to find haven and protection. To his shock, the minions from the underworld finally come, revealing themselves. Blue and green urchins stab at her body, carrying her life-force to the afterworld. He closes his mouth, _why Tenseiga?_ He slashes through them. Her body is healed, the stomach seals itself, her eyes flutter open, she coughs and is suddenly surrounded by her family. It's like the katana is betraying him. He can't breathe.

"Did it work?" Rin asks as he leaves.

"Yes," he says and flies away, leaving her alone with the villagers. _Why_


	48. Rin-Past VIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru struggles to accept that Tenseiga is no longer working on youkai but still revives humans. In the process he finds solace with Rin.

**Rin-past**

She sits in the hot springs nursing a bruised back. She lets the hot water slush over her aching skin. Her head hurts. She has a cup of tea next to her to ease the pain. She covers her eyes and begins to sob, not understanding what's happening. In the past he would never treat her the way he has in the last few weeks. If it continues and he walks down this path, how does he become the one she saw in the future? Her mind circles around scenarios, how to save him from what he is becoming and wondering if just by seeing who he is in the future, did she change the past.

She dunks her head in the water trying to calm the tide of emotions. She winces as the water washes over the painful goose egg he gave her on the back of her head, just where her skull meets her neck. She presses her hand against the skin, it comes away bloody. "Dammit," she sighs, leaning back and resting her head. The children are already in bed. It took most of the evening to assuage Yuki of the guilt she felt. She had done exactly what Rin would have done, save the baby, let the mother die. Sesshomaru would fix it.

Rustling in the bedroom catches her ear. She can see him through the curtains. The door opens, he has a tray of food, both for him and for her. He is dressed only in a light grey kimono. Setting the tray by the hot springs, he removes his clothing, climbing into the waters next to her. She immediately moves to the other side, away from him, turning away, hoping he can't tell that she was just crying through the sulfur and natural smells of the water. The steam can look like tears, but it can't hide red cheeks and eyes, or what pulses between their bond.

"You weren't at dinner," his voice is softer than the demon that yelled at her earlier.

"I'm not hungry," her tone is thick with tears. She couldn't bring herself to eat before. Not after what he did, what he said or how he left her to comfort Yuki alone.

"You're upset," he rubs the scar on his chest.

She wants to slap him. Even she can see it glowing, reminding him that he is meant to do more than treat her the way that he has. It hurts even more knowing he returned because of the scar on his chest, not out of love. The only reason he is there is because of their bond. "I'm going to finish in the bathhouse." She goes to get out, only to be pulled back in. "Please? I'm tired of fighting. Ow!" She cries as her back slides against the rock.

He turns her around, making her skin crawl in arousal and pain. "Who did this?" Fingers run over the bruises on her back and into the hair where the painful bump stings at his touch.

She wipes her dampened eyes. "You don't remember slamming my back against the wall?"

"I did this?"

She nods, attempting to get off his lap. "I need space. Let me go."

"No." He presses his lips into the back of her head.

She immediately feels relief from her pain, cursing that he can both hurt her and heal her. The yoki bleeds into her skull, down her neck, into her shoulders.

"I'm sorry," he says sincerely.

"It's not enough." She covers her face.

She feels his palm and fingers spread out against her back, soothing the pain, removing the bruises. "I will not do it again."

"You've said that too," she says, "I don't want to be around you right now." She can't face him. It's not the first time he has hurt her. It happened often during sparring session but it was the first time rage led him to leave a mark on her.

She is pulled back into his lap as he possessively nuzzles her neck. "I have mistreated you."

She nods.

"Talk to me," he kisses the joint of her shoulder.

She curses her body for reacting to his touch, for heating, for wanting more. She faces away from him, a pathetic attempt at staying angry. "I'm not the one that needs to speak," she scrubs her eyes and swallows her sorrow. She turns and presses her hand against his chest, "you ache and you won't let me comfort you."

"You ache," he says.

"I can't…I don't know what you want from me Sesshomaru. I'm sorry Tenseiga worked on a human but isn't on Yokai but…"

He growls and she doesn't know why. She hasn't heard that before. "Are you?" his tone darkens again.

She flinches, moving away from him. "I'm going to bed." She ceases trying to speak to him. He can't be bothered to speak about his brother. If she brings it up, he lashes out. She knows Tenseiga only reviving humans is going to make things that much worse between them. She tries to get out of the springs only to be stopped again.

"Make love to me," he mutters in her ear.

"What?"

"I need it." He pulls her to straddle his lap. He kisses her lips and she can't resist. She also needs it. Their lips meet, tongues pass in pleasure. He knows all the right places, down her neck, across her collar bone but then it turns into something she isn't used to. He takes and it hurts.

"Stop," she shoves herself off his lap, "what is wrong with you?" She gets enough leverage to get out of the pool. She touches her side where blood runs down her skin. There are no words. "After what your other brother did to me? You know…" She can't finish. She runs into their bedroom.

He follows, he always follows. She can't get away. He presses her back against the wall and whispers, "it hurts." He pulls her hand to his chest. He is naked and so is she. His heat presses against her stomach. "I…" He raises his hand.

She sees it. Flinching, she covers her face, hiding from him behind upraised hands.

The back of the hand comes down in a gentle caress, a tender show of affection against her cheek. She gazes back at eyes full of betrayal. "Did you think I would hit you?"

Her bottom lip quivers. "You've been so angry." She exhales a breath she didn't realize she was holding. Their bodies are so close together.

"I have never hit you." He presses himself against her, hands running down the side of her neck.

She can't stand the tone of his voice, it's tender and affectionate and calls to her. "You slammed me against a wall. I'm not yokai Sesshomaru, it hurt."

"Forgive me," he whispers lips brushing against hers. "You're shivering." His fingers run up her neck, through her hair and down her back, pulling her closer to his heat. He lifts one of her legs seeking entry again.

She flinches at the invasion and swallows. "It hurts."

His hand ghosts down her stomach, between her legs, cupping her sex tenderly. "You're very dry. What's wrong my heart?"

 _My heart,_ it makes her break out in bumps when he calls her that. "I could ask you the same thing." She shivers both from the chill of evening and from the hands running up and down her sides. "We haven't done this in a few weeks. I'm not ready." There were times in the past she would drip in anticipation of his touch, that the sight of him naked would send her into a frenzy, but this…not like this.

He backs away, taking her hand in his. She would follow him anywhere and she knows that he knows it. She knows nothing besides him, no love besides his arms. He was her first everything. She trusts him, but lately…They walk onto the futon. She accepts his embrace, falling against his warmth. He lifts her chin, she accepts the kiss he gives her. His lips are dry, warm and heat her mouth. She moans lightly as his hands come back up her body, over her hips, up her sides, to rest against her breast. The sensation makes her flinch, she breaks the kiss backing away. "Too fast…"

He shakes his head. "You act like we haven't done this before."

"We haven't been in this place before." She keeps her distance and turns her back on him. She knows before he does it that he will close the gap. His chest presses against her skin. He moves the hair from neck and then a hot tongue traces circles over her skin.

"What place?" He drags her down onto the bed, sitting next to her.

"You, like this." She grips his wrists as hands find her breasts again, roughly massaging them. "You hurt me today and now you want me to be intimate with you…" she has to say it, "you won't let me talk about him." Hands tighten against her skin. "And when I do, you do this. Let me go."

The fingers slacken against her skin. "Make love to me," he says again.

She stands up and walks to their window. "I can't like this," she whispers knowing no matter how quiet she is, he will hear it. "I need to mourn for him. I can't bottle it like you do, mmmh," she sighs as a hot mouth falls against her neck.

"Come to bed," he seduces her with his words, pulling her back into their bed. He lifts the covers and she lays down. He rolls her to face him.

She stares into his eyes, trying to lose herself in the first kiss he gives her. "Gently," she mutters against his lips. She wraps an arm around his waist. She pants as his mouth runs down her neck. She lifts her chin, swallowing as his tongue works its way to the tender spot that dips by the curve of her collar bone. His face comes down between her breasts. She holds his cheeks, as his tongue flicks over nipples. "Mmmh." His mouth is wet and hot as it laps against her skin. She can feel him seeking lower and lower. She knew that he had needed her to satiate his lust, to give her body, but her own was not cooperating. She's forgotten she can feel this good. He rises over her, pulling her legs apart. He grips her stomach, and she shivers. His breath pants against her opening.

His nose dips first. "You're so dry." His fingers run down her opening, she can feel the back of one finger running up and down her opening. "Have I been so terrible?" He folds his arms over her stomach and rests his chin on laced fingers.

"Would you enjoy being around someone who throws you into things when they are upset and hiding from their emotions?" She strokes his hair. His eyes fall. She sees it clearly, "you miss him." She runs her thumbs over the markings on his cheek. "I miss him too," she finally supplies for both of them. "I'm sorry I can't be what you need right now," she attempts to sit up and kiss him.

"Lay down." He pushes her back down. His breath is by her opening again. "Shh," he licks her lips, wetting them with his tongue. He opens her with his fingers. Her body tenses then a fire starts as he his lips create suction against her clit.

"Oh." She feathers her fingers through his hair. Her walls tense as he creates more suction. She feels herself moistening for him, searching for something to clamp down on. "Kami, Sesshomaru."

He pauses long enough to ask, "Does it feel good?"

"Yes." Her chest heaves as she breaths faster. She lifts her legs back more as her body tenses against her control. His tongue is advancing, sweeping in and out as he lays over her. He flicks it up, then sucks deeply against her skin. She wants more, she can feel it burning inside. It rips a hole into her stomach, "please…" she begs him.

"Where?" He asks her teasingly, but she hears something else behind his voice, mourning, yearning.

"Inside." She opens herself, raising her knees. It tightens her core. The fingers enter, he knows just where to go. A dip between two folds, where he pumps his fingers in and out while his mouth continues to suck against her sensitive parts. She feels herself swelling, tightening, begging for him. Liquid releases onto his fingers, "Oh…oh…oh…" The pressure stops suddenly.

He rises over her, cupping her face, his thumb damp from her heat traces her bottom lip. He kisses her mouth.

"Why did you stop?"

"I will not hurt you again. Forgive me." His eyes are so serious, she knows he is telling the truth.

His fingers dip back down where she needs him most. His mouth follows, making more suction and heat. She's back on the ledge, in pain and needy. One last push of his fingers and she is over the edge. She sees white light, her body convulses, she can't move.

He rises over her dipping himself down. She grips his shoulders. "Ready?"

She nods holding onto his chest. She reaches down grasping him, helping him find her center that is still clenching. He pushes in slowly and carefully. "Your so wet…" he grips the pillows for stability, "you're so wet Rin," he kisses her mouth.

She holds on as he moves within her, pumping faster and faster. He takes now that he has given her what she needs. She wraps her legs around his waist. Then she sees it. A droplet forms beneath his right eye. A hand digs into her side, lifting her onto his lap as he releases within her. "I couldn't save him," his tears run down her back. "I couldn't save him."

"It's…" she can't say it's okay, because it isn't. How can death be acceptable? No matter who it is. "I'm sorry my love," she holds him, knowing his pride, knowing the strength it's taking him to break down. The last time he cried in her arms like this was when they lost their baby, their daughter they named Sakura. "Shh," she lifts his chin and kisses his lips. "I love you."

Silence takes them. There are no more words left to speak.


	49. Mayumi-Present/Yashida

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The humans struggle to find a way to cure Sesshomaru and the scroll of Yashida is finally read.

**Mayumi-present**

She sits in Ojisama's office with the other doctors and her family. The air is tense around them, stale, making her shiver.

Natsuki forced Haruto Yamamoto to call his wife and make up an excuse as to why he couldn't come home. Yoshi's girlfriend broke up with him for missing another date. They're sitting, huddled around another stack of papers and blood tests.

Tsukimaru unearthed the ones from Ojisama's private stash, including ones brought through the well. They're comparing them to the ones they just took on Ojisama after he collapsed. It's almost comical watching them try to understand what they see. Even her blood diverges vastly from youkai blood.

Yoshi complains of exhaustion. Three nurses are sleeping on the floor in the waiting area. "If you don't find an answer, I'm going to kill you," Natsuki threatens Yamamoto-sama again. "Why he thought working here would help us," she paces, wringing her fingers.

"If I knew what was used to poison your kind, this would go much faster. The effects? Anything! You will not get away with killing us," Yamamoto-sama yells at them.

"I will and I will raze this place to the ground," Natsuki is gloating. It scares Mayumi. When she wants to be, the yokai can be truly evil. "Do you think we never had a contingency plan in place should you find out about him? All of this will be gone. We have a…Mayumi what are those computer colds called?"

"Virus," she scoffs, "just like human colds." Natsuki has never been "into" technology. She's like the old people Mayumi's classmates complain about only worse, because she looks like she's 19 but is well over 800 years old. "Can't teach an old dog new tricks…" she mutters.

"Excuse me?" Natsuki turns on her, furious.

"Nothing," Mayumi fakes a smile. _Nothing at all._

"A virus was written to blot out everything he did. If burning this place doesn't work," she picks up a vase. Her hand glows green, bright and the room fills with a rotten smell. "Poof," the vase disappears in her hand, eaten by her poison.

"My god," Yoshi covers his mouth and backs away, shaken.

"You have no idea who did it? What did it? Beyond monks? Let me speak to him again," Yamamoto-sama stands up. "I need to know the components."

Natsuki blocks his path. "If he doesn't rest, his end will come faster. I am not ready to lose him." The demoness continues pacing as her son sits in a chair, staring off into space.

Mayumi has seen it before, she does it when she's nervous and upset. Natsuki looks like she has been crying. She knows there is a girl in the room recovering with Sesshomaru who is blind but she hasn't gone back in. At one time, Ojisama told Mayumi that at her core, Natsuki was selfish and self-serving. It was what made them such a good couple. Mayumi stands up and asks, "what about the scroll he still hasn't read?"

"What scroll?" Natsuki turns around.

"I found a scroll," Taiyomaru answers. "It was at Higurashi shrine…" he's taller than her Uncle but he's in between soft spoken and loud. He lowers his head, "the Monks name was Yashida. It's all there."

"You read it already?" Mayumi asks him. Izayoi is asleep in their Uncle's office chair.

Taiyomaru nods, "how else would I know that he needed to read it. He hasn't read it has he?"

Mayumi shakes her head.

"You should sleep little one," Tsukimaru finally stands up from his spot by one of the windows. "Come with me."

"Tsukimaru?" Taiyomaru shoots out of his chair, nearly tripping on the sitting doctors. His eyes are wide and his mouth slack.

"I smell it too," Natsuki runs from the room.

"He's bleeding out," Tsukimaru puts Mayumi in a chair and follows them.

"He's already bled out?" Yoshi asks following behind them. If Yoshi only knew how much he could lose and how quickly her Uncle replaces it. She listened to him drone on one night about how superior his blood was.

"He's not like you," Mayumi yawns. "His body replenishes what he loses quickly."

Mayumi runs after the rest to find her Uncle leaning over the side of the bed. Blood is spurting from his mouth. Even she can smell it. The bed of the girl that he was treating is closer to him. She moves the break and pulls the bed back into place on the other side of the room. The girl is sleeping and covered in a mat of sweat. The nurses run in, woken by the clatter and shouts.

"Suction!" Yamamoto reaches for the machine that sounds like a vacuum and pushes into Ojisama's mouth. "How do we stop the bleeding?" Yamamoto-sama asks, "tell me how my friend."

"You can't," Sesshomaru coughs catching his breath and wipes his mouth, before he rallies and vomits again. The tube is put back in, helping him to clear his airway. Mayumi shakes with fear. The floors are painted in blood.

"I can," Natsuki leans him back, "relax," she says touching her forehead to his. Her hand runs over his stomach, "your organs are failing. You really are intent on leaving me. And getting my feet dirty." She tries to flick the blood from her silken shoes.

Mayumi comes out and picks up the scroll. "Why haven't you read it?"

One of the nurses picks up his arm, "the vein collapsed…I think."

Sesshomaru lifts his arm. "It looks the same on us as it does you. Give me a large bore IV and a central line kit."

Mayumi knows what that is. There are things she was forced to learn to live in his home. Most specifically about how to care for her Uncle and the others that were suffering from the same ailment. One of the nurses hands it to him. They all watch in shock as he slices the skin just below his collarbone, he staunches the bleeding with his own finger, and threads the tubing in. He changes the IV bag from going into his blown vein to the one in his chest. "I need more blood Tsukimaru, Taiyomaru," he says to his sons. "Tsukimaru," his tone lowers so much it makes Mayumi want to run and hide.

"What Chichiue?" His white haired child asks him, fidgeting backwards, like some unknown argument is happening between the two of thm.

"Do you have something you want to tell me?" His eyes glance over at Nina sleeping on the other bed.

For a moment Tsukimaru is still, then his eyes widen. "N-n-nothing," he says firmly. "Nothing…now."

"Chichiue, why haven't you read this?" Taiyomaru picks up the scroll.

"And here I thought I was supposed to be resting." Sesshomaru closes his eyes.

"You're avoiding it," Taiyomaru holds it. "Do you want me to read it to you?"

"I'll do it," Mayumi offers.

"Does it have what he used to poison them?" Yamamoto-sama asks.

"Here," Taiyomaru opens it and points to words Mayumi can't quite make out. She's versed in reading Modern Japanese but she failed to learn ancient Japanese.

"I'm no scholar," Yoshi says glancing at the other doctor for help.

"Neither am I. You can read this?" Haruto asks Taiyomaru.

"I will read it," Sesshomaru takes it from both of them. "Now leave, all of you."

"What did they use?" Yamamoto-sama asks as he is ushered out by Taiyomaru.

"Can we clean the mess Rinata-sama?" One of the nurses asks.

He nods.

Mayumi stays behind. She climbs into the bed and sits down next to her Uncle. She wipes her nose, "I'm sorry."

He playfully taps her nose and lifts up the blanket to his bed for her to snuggle against his side. In the past, he would have killed her for this.

She curls against him and cries. "Please stay. Don't go."

"It's okay little one," he mutters against her hair. He lifts up her hands and sniffs them, "you will pay for and clean the mess you made at school."

"You're no fun. Ojisama from five hundred years ago would have thought it was funny," she says yawning.

He suddenly starts laughing. If he had seen his niece blow something up and sent a bunch of humans running from their own sewage he would have been rolling inside and stoic on the outside. He breathes in deeply, "you smell like flowers did you know that? A rose, on the first day of spring."

"You're breaking your promise, you said you promised to take care of us. You can't do that if you die," she kisses his cheek.

"Do you plan to sleep on me?"

"Read it to me?" she says exhausted.

"It won't change what happened Mayumi," he says softly.

"I'll know my father's killer. Isn't that enough?"

He doesn't answer, Ojisama begins reading.

**Yashida**

I am Yashida. I was sent to learn under master Ungai when I was twelve years old. I come from a long line of monks. My family hails from the northern provinces. In my youth I was a precocious child. I loved running in the fields and finding plants that no one had ever seen before. My mother was a master Healer. My father protected the family shrine. I had three sisters and two brothers. I was the youngest. We were all very close in age, one constantly climbing over the other. I raced my eldest brother Hiro into the forests to see who could collect water from the river the fastest and bring it back without spilling. He always won. My sisters helped my mother tend a garden in front of our home. Every day they could be found knee deep in fresh mud and budding herbs.

It ended the day a demon horde attacked our village. We tried to escape. My father erected a barrier, but this particular demon had green vines that grew from his body. They penetrated the barrier, then white crystal lights shot from his body, tearing my father to pieces. The barrier fell, he and his horde covered my village. I hid in a cellar where our neighbor made sake with her two children. I was eleven at the time. The demons couldn't find us. Ungai-sama said it was because the scent of the sake was so strong that we survived. When it was over, our neighbors implored me to follow in my father's footsteps. They hired a carriage with what was left of our treasures and I was sent to live with Ungai-sama in his shrine.

The first days were lonely. I missed my parents and my family. I missed racing into the forest with Hiro. I was diligent in my studies. I learned all manner of exorcisms. The first was how to remove spirits from the homes with sutras and herbs. Together with the other apprentices, we learned how to create mixtures that destroyed the sensitive smells of some of the minor demons. The effects never lasted long.

One night, Ungai-sama called me into his private study. His study opened from one of the outer wooden walkways, but oddly I heard grunting and yelling on the other side. I came through the door, then out doors on the other side. Several of my fellow monks had tied down what looked like a hanyou hawk demon. Her eyes were the strangest color brown I had ever seen. Her hair was brown and long, tied into several intricate braids. "Let me go!" she shouted at them. Her nails extended into long talons but couldn't cut the ropes that bound her.

"Ungai-sama?"

Ungai-sama sat in front of the hawk demon, mixing together several herbs. I wasn't sure what they were. Next to him sat the head of a snake-yokai, the tale of a mamoshi demon, a bag of herbs that stunk of poisonous plants and berries.

"Sit down," Ungai-sama patted the floor next to him. His face was lined and wrinkled. He was nearing his fiftieth year. "There are a rash of demon attacks since that strange force left Mt. Hakarei. After we deal with this abomination, you will accompany me into the woods. We will put your skills to work."

"She looks like a child," I said, almost feeling bad for her.

She flailed her arms. A rope was tied around her neck, another around her waist and a final thicker one binding her hands. She shrieked loudly as she was flung back down to the ground. Her skin was dark like the earth. She begged to be released. "A sheep in wolves clothing."

"Can't we just purify the yoki from her?"

"It would come back. Yashida does this trouble you?" He lifted up his stone pestle ceasing the mixture. "This, if it works the way I want, will take care of our problem. We'll send her back to her people and perhaps it will take care of them too." He rose off his mat and told the girl, "If you drink this I will let you go."

"It smells like poison," the girl hissed.

"If you don't, we will kill you." Ungai-sama pressed his hands against the girl's throat releasing holy energy from his fingers that crackled and burned against her skin.

She shrieked again, sounding more like a bird than a human. She took the bowl and drank it. "Yashida, you will watch her and record the reactions in this scroll." Ungai-sama handed me the scroll and a quill to write. The ropes were tied down with large spikes, driven in by mallets.

I sat down in front of her, almost pitying the poor girl with tainted blood. My job from then was to watch her. She ate and drank like normal for the first month. Once she reverted to a completely human form. She was beautiful. Her hair changed from the strange goldish-brown, with stripes to plain black. Her ears that were almost non-existent on the sides of her head, extended into human-like ears. "Please let me go, you promised if I drank it I could leave." She cried at night. "My name is Akane."

I tried to ignore her.

"I don't have a family or a tribe. I lived with my father, a human, in a mountain cliff. Please?" Her eyes were pathetic and downcast. "Please let me go?"

Her pleading grated on my nerves. I wondered how many of my brothers and sisters begged for their lives against the horde that destroyed my village. "You are an abomination. When we begin to see effects then you may leave." I said it so coldly, not believing my own words. My father did not harbor the same hatred for demons that Ungai-sama did. He was known to heal some, but whenever I thought of his benevolence towards them, my mind went back to the day my village was destroyed. I could still hear the screaming as if it were yesterday, the cries, the shrieks. The bodies afterwards were putrid. The skin was missing from the muscle and bone. I buried my own family that day. Is there anything such as a good demon?

"I am a product of love. How are we any different?" She is forced to lay on her stomach at night, arms out stretched. A penance for her evil.

"Demons destroy whatever they come in contact with!" I yelled at her.

"Do we?" Akane's eyes were like black orbs, captivating. "Have you heard of a hanyou hawk demon attacking anyone?"

"No," I admitted, "I haven't."

"Then why do I suffer for the sins of my kind? What about you? How many of your kind have purified mine? Does that mean we have the right to destroy your homes and poison your body?"

"You are evil, conceived from a union that was unholy." I walked around her, searching for the malice that I was supposed to feel for her. Yet, Akane seemed like a child, no more than eleven or twelve. "How old are you?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," she shrugged off my request.

"Akane," I kneeled down next to her face holding a cup of water. Ungai-sama said to only give her water and rice during the day. She drank gratefully. "What if I let you go?"

Her eyes swelled with hope.

"It's not time," Ungai-sama's voice boomed from behind me. "Do not talk to that thing."

"Ungai-sama…what did you give her?" I ran into his study. "What is it supposed to do?"

"With any luck, it will kill her." He polished his golden shakujo as if it is nothing.

"You said you would let her go?"

"You know what stops them from leaving this world? They are immune to all manner of illness. A hanyou gets sick, but it is often not deadly. They are rejected by their kind and ours as they should be. They are a sacrilege, a shame of an existence. The pure-blooded ones, particularly those that walk in human form, they are immune to all of our poisons and all of our illnesses. I am seeking a way to destroy them. Get one sick and let it spread like a plague. The demon-race will come to an end."

"What if we are wrong? What did Akane-"

"Akane? You asked her name? A beast doesn't need a name."

I felt embarrassed.

"You've been speaking to that thing?"

I nodded my head, trying to avoid his harsh eyes.

"You will not speak to that thing. She is not a human. Do not be deceived by her looks. Given the chance to betray you, she would."

The next night, Akane began to develop symptoms. Her body covered in a fever. She shook. I waited for Ungai-sama to retire for the night. I lay one of my haori's over her shoulders. I felt bad that she was suffering so. She couldn't escape her bonds unless I removed the sutras from the ropes that held her. As the night wore on, I became tired and my eyelids drooped. When I opened them, a woman was standing over me. She had wings like a bird, and longer talons on her legs. "Let my daughter go."

"Haha-ue?" Akane's eyes were crusted over. Her fingers were covered in blisters.

The moment I tried to yell for Ungai-sama, human fingers covered my mouth, a knife went to my throat. I couldn't turn my head. "Remove the sutras," a man spoke from behind me.

"What have you done to her?" The majestic female demon with pointed ears stroked her daughter's braids.

"Poison," I admitted.

"Which kind?" she demanded of me.

"I don't know. It wasn't me-" suddenly her talons were in my neck. I couldn't breathe. Blood trickled down my skin. "It wasn't me!" My mouth was covered again.

"It was me." Ungai-sama came from his room, khakkhara in hand. It glinted gold in the sunlight. "Let him go yokai."

The female demoness turned on Ungai-sama. "Let her go. We trade."

"No trades!" Ungai-sama flew into the air, slamming his staff into the dirt. It kicked up a dust storm, then a wave of purifying energy came flying at the female demoness. She flew into the sky, missing the waves all together. Her body changed from humanoid, to a hawk with livid red eyes. She dived at Ungai-sama. Her beak ripped into the flesh around his stomach. The ripple of blue energy smashed into Akane. It was no longer a hanyou lying on the floor of the courtyard but a human girl.

"Akane!" the man called, tightening the blade against my throat. "Release her monk, or I will slit this one's throat."

"Ungai-sama?" I was terrified. My legs were wet from voiding myself, my fingers shook.

Akane's mother dove into the lines holding her daughter only to be repelled by the holy energy sealing them. She soared into the air again, bent her wings into her body and dove.

"Let the boy go." Ungai-sama forced himself off the ground. He wiped the blood from his stomach. He marched over to the lines and began removing the sutras. As soon as the power was gone, the mother hacked the ropes with her talons. The father and daughter climbed onto the brown, speckled hawks back and then they were gone. "Do you see now Yashida? They are evil. Their kind deserves to be wiped from the earth and I will find the way."

Ungai-sama saw potential in me. I thought Akane was like me at first. A simple human but then she wasn't and neither were the ones that came for her. Ungai-sama said they were her parents. I wondered if she survived the mixture of herbs that Ungai gave her. He continued experimenting and trapping demons. We discovered which ones cause internal bleeding, some liquified the insides, but only in half-demons.

When I was seventeen, we heard of the Ongoguki demon that attacked a village taking all the children. It was a strange event. It was there that Ungai-sama met his greatest foe, the one that would give him the hunger to find an even more powerful means of destroying our enemies. We found him, regal, white hikama, white haori and full of a fury we had never felt before. He had just slaughtered an entire village. That is what Ungai-sama said, but I was confused because there were also night robbers.

We approached him. Ungai-sama tried a variety sutras to subdue him. He said, "I have no use for humans." He had silver hair, pointed ears and the strangest facial markings.

"What was he?" I asked Ungai-sama.

"A Mononoke of the greatest power," he said, angry that he had used a large array of sutras that hadn't worked.

Later that day, while we were searching for the demon that stole the children, we found a little girl of seven or eight years of age foraging for food in the forest. She had just pulled a turnip from the ground. As soon as she saw us she ran. "Wait! I sense yoki!" Ungai-sama chased after her, worried that she was one of the village children. She said she wasn't, and then flew away on a double headed dragon. It was a strange day indeed.

Later that night, we finally found Ongoguki. "We'll lure him out," Ungai-sama told us. We were seven monks and Ungai-sama. We made straw children out of spare parts around the forest. Ungai-sama lured the Ongoguki out of his hiding place. He discovered all too late that they weren't real. We ran around him in a circle, whirling and twirling. Our red beads sent waves of purifying energy. Sutras covered his body. Ungai-sama called, "disappear demon," banging his staff on the ground. The Ongoguki was slain.

Afterwards the children were happy to be rescued, except one. One of them said there was a girl hiding in the cave that didn't want to come out. She said that humans were scarier than demons. Ungai-sama picked her up. She struggled and screamed, "let me go. No! No!"

"Why do you struggle so much?" Ungai-sama questioned her. She should have been happy to be free. "There's no way you can live alone in these mountains."

"Yes I can! I live on my own. I'm fine on my own!"

"Don't say such foolish things." He continued walking, not allowing her down. She wore a checkered kimono of fine silk.

"No, let go of me! Sesshomaru-sama will come for me!"

"Sesshomaru-sama?" Ungai-sama questioned her.

"I don't want to go back to a village with humans!" she screamed and that is when we felt it. "Sesshomaru-sama! Sesshomaru-sama!"

A dark yoki emanated from the trees. Ungai-sama threw a talisman at the forest. We felt a most terrible yoki coming from that direction. The trees were destroyed but there he stood, unaffected by the purification. It was the same demon from the other night!

"It's the demon from the other day!" I told Ungai-sama.

"Let me go!" she screamed again.

"Yokai, you've bewitched this child!" Ungai-sama accused the demon.

"Ungai-sama?" I asked as the demon began his approach.

"This demon's foul yoki must be dealt with!" Ungai-sama raised his staff.

We ran around him in a purifying circle. We threw talismans on him. Ungai-sama slammed his staff on the ground but the purifying energy was to no effect. He was not destroyed!

When the dust cleared, the demon was standing there as if it was nothing!

"He's still alive?" One of our comrades asked.

The demon, Sesshomaru-sama continued his approach, unphased by our attack.

"Stand fast! Immobilize him!" Ungai-sama demanded. We made another circle around him, until white energy lit around his feet. It burned like a fire.

"Halt!" We stopped his advance. We sent our purifying energy again. Ungai-sama used his staff, sending waves of white purification in his direction.

The demon growled, his eyes turned red. He snarled in rage, he blew back the purification energy, building a red twisting cloud of evil energy. It sent us flying. Ungai-sama said, "such power." He was too strong, even for us. My side ached, my face scraped against a stone.

"Rin," the demon said.

"Yes?" she answered happily.

"Do as you like," he told her and walked away.

"Wait, that is Mononoke, a demon, it's not someone a human child should follow. Wait! Humans and demons live in different worlds!" Ungai-sama yelled at the foolish child as she ran from him and followed the youkai.

The next day we met a hanyou and Ungai-sama did not understand why humans, especially a miko and a monk would travel with ones like those. "It is because of them we must act," he said.

When we returned to the Shrine, Ungai-sama became ill. "It was the fight with the demon," he said. "It was too much." On his death-bed he handed me a scroll. "Finish my work. In here is all you need to know to destroy them."

The next time I saw the Dai-yokai that had stood against Ungai-sama and seven monks, he was on his back, hidden by shrubs near the river. A human woman straddled his bare body. We were a company of fifteen, dedicated to wiping his kind from the face of the earth. The human woman looked young, but it was her belly that caught our attention. It was full and there was the faintest taint of yoki coming from the small mound of flesh. We knew then, that he had bewitched her, impregnated her. I ran forward first, followed by comrades. "Leave her alone, Mononoke!" It wasn't her fault. He was as majestic as the first time I saw him. Why wouldn't a young woman be manipulated by him? There were only eight of us before, this time our numbers were nearly doubled. He would be ours.

He pushed the human woman off him and flew to his feet. He stepped in front of her, shielding her from us. One of his hands held her wrist behind his back. I was shocked that this time, he had two arms. The woman hid behind him, holding his shoulders, her mouth and nose pressed against his back. "Sesshomaru, my clothes."

He was an animal and like an animal he knelt down carefully covering his exposed areas with his long white tail. He picked up an orange yukata and handed it to the human behind him. "Sesshomaru," I mocked him. "What happened to the child that used to follow you?"

His eyes bore into us. We began to surround him.

"Go," he said to the human woman, passing her a smaller katana.

"Don't leave," I said to her. "We're here to rescue you!"

"I'm not leaving you," she said to the yokai.

He shoved her back, casually picking up his fundoshi and hikama in the process. She fled into the bushes. "Fujio, Hiro! Follow her!" They ran after her, but were thrown back by a green light coming from the Mononoke's claws.

He howled in rage, eyes turning red much faster than I remembered the last time I met him. We circled him as he tried to run in the direction of the woman. "Halt!" We lit a holy fire around his feet, binding him.

"Go, bring her back. The child must be disposed of," I told Fujio and Hiro as they rose from the ground. They were both injured with gouges down their faces.

His silence was mocking, but anger was apparent. He growled at us, daring us to touch the child that was in the belly of the female he had been laying with. "We'll dispose of you this time too." We circled him, finally closing in. The binding white circle held his feet in place. They were striped and clawed. He roared again trying to escape.

Suddenly I heard screaming from Fujio and Hiro behind us.

We circled the demon, running around him, holding our beads and removing sutras. These were the most powerful from what was left of Master Ungai's sutras. I still had his staff. "Be gone! Yokai!" I yelled, flying into the air, landing a savagery of holy power against him.

The yokai grunted, and groaned. His face turned white. I knew we had him. It would only take moments. Fighting his yoki felt like trying to hike a steep mountain, like breathing underwater. I had never felt such powerful yoki. Not even of the other humanoid demons we had disposed of. He was forced to his knees, one hand gripping the dirt. Sweat beaded from his forehead.

"Your time is ending," I said. Soon he would be nothing but dust.

"Leave him alone!" A rock came flying at me. It hit me in the head, knocking me down, breaking my concentration.

Then a green whip-like light flew from the pregnant female's katana. She raised it into the air, sending shockwaves through us. She slammed it into the legs of the monks binding his feet. My head was on fire. Blood dripped down the side of my face. Was she really a demon in disguise? She jumped and flipped through the air, wielding the demon katana we had failed to notice before. It's aura was similar to the thing in front of us. As she knocked the legs out and threw the monks aside, it weakened our binding.

The demon rose from his knees. As he did, his face changed. A white snout grew. His nose covered in fur. His arms grew into white muscles. He landed a giant white dog in front of us rearing.

I searched for the rock she had used on me. My hand fumbled because it was covered in blood. I threw it at her head, hitting her temple. She cried in pain and fell unconscious, covered in blood.

I knew that was the wrong decision. The demon became feral, howling in rage. He chased after us. I ran for my life. He was too powerful. We lost ten monks that day to the evil beast. He tore them to pieces. He deserves death. I made a note in my scrolls, that if I were to finish Ungai-sama's work, the toxin would need to be strong enough to kill him. I will kill Sesshomaru.

Years later, I finally perfected it. Over the years I caught and trapped many demons to make the toxin. Wisteria seeds cause vomiting. In a large enough quantity, it can make one vomit blood. Japanese Yew makes the body shake. It took time to cultivate enough to spread. I hid it inside of baked goods and found the village where it was rumored that the hanyou we had met lived with his Miko lover. I hid the toxins inside sweet rice and added cedar for fever. In my past experiments, death was not always imminent. The yokai body, even in large quantities will overcome them. It needed to bind itself to their yoki so that it wouldn't hurt humans. I climbed the highest mountain and found a witch. She cursed the seeds to only attack those with strong yoki. I quickly discovered from my experiments, that hanyous were not immune.

The one called Inuyasha took two years to die. It was a gruesome end, but then I discovered he was the brother of this Sesshomaru. It is rumored he hides behind a barrier that we haven't been able to detect. It must spread faster and infect more. I traveled south afterwards. Wolf-demons were seen in larger numbers near the ogres. I went back to the mountain witch and asked her how to ensure that it spreads among the yokai. It has to be like a human illness. She told me to infect a hanyou who is already sick with another illness. I found one that was sick with blisters, his entire family was. The witch followed me, happy to rid herself of the demons in the area. She cursed him that all he would come in contact with would spread the disease. It's working. The ogres are getting sick, the wolves. I will travel North and West next to finish them off. Then leave this country. I will go West to China. The end has come.


	50. Sesshomaru-Present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru remembers his battle with Yashida when he and Rin first bonded and continues to work with his colleagues to find a cure.
> 
> This ends section one called Inferno. Next comes the storm. Sorry I didn't update in forever. I'm going to try to post a slew of chapters to get this caught up to FFN.
> 
> Reminder this story has been voted best Dark on Feudal connection. You can vote here.
> 
> https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf9MH9nz-WlxDYkmlMrNF89QdsYPSe0SHnyBC47mbcPAB_3zg/alreadyresponded

**Sesshomaru-present**

Mayumi's asleep on his chest by the time he finishes reading the scroll. The front of his hospital gown is soaked in her tears. He strokes her hair, kissing the crown of her head, knowing the pain Mayumi feels. He lost both his parents, one a more brutal death than the other.

He stares down at the text, his throat is hoarse. _It's my fault,_ he covers his eyes with shaking hands. He knew that Ungai had trained those beneath him to hate his kind, that a rash of incidents with Monks purifying at random, but he didn't know that he had faced the same monk, twice. He wipes the wetness from beneath his eyes. If the one from five hundred years ago saw who he is now, what he is. He shakes his head and closes his eyes.

_They had gotten into a fight. He had stumbled across a rather unpleasant side effect of her hormones while she was pregnant. He killed a doe that had gotten away from her, but an action he thought should have been endearing sent her fleeing from him in tears._

_They fought and then as they were making up in the most pleasant way possible, they were ambushed. She didn't want to leave him, but he wouldn't risk her and their unborn child. He protected her modesty before his own. He always did. Rin had a beautiful body, even more so pregnant. It wasn't something he would allow others to gaze upon._

_There was a moment when he was brought to his knees fighting the purifying power. Minutes passed as he strained against the pressure beating against him. He wasn't going to make it, until Rin started taking out the Monks, one by one. They naively assumed she wasn't a threat._

_It was when she was hit in the head in return and the scent of her blood fled into his senses, he lost control. He transformed, calling on the true extent of his demonic power and slaughtered ten of the fifteen that attacked them. He ripped their heads off, pulled out their insides and when the leader, Yashida tried to lift Rin off the ground with two others, he towered over them, snarling. They fled in terror._

_She was limp on the forest floor, covered in blood. It dripped down her face, over her nose and into her hair. His heart broke, it ached. He feared for the life they had created together, he feared for her. He lowered his head and licked the cut. He lapped at her skin, hoping it would wake her up. She didn't move. The flesh beneath the blood was purple and blue. He continued licking it carefully. His saliva was stronger in his true form than even in his human form. He nuzzled her face with his nose. She groaned rolling slightly. Her hand came up to touch his fur. She pet his snout. The action sent shivers down his spine. He changed back into his humanoid form, lifting her up. "Sesshomaru?" she whimpered, gripping his chest._

" _I'm here." He kissed her lips as if it would be their last kiss. "I'm here."_

_He took her to the river. He tore a piece of her yukata off and dunked it in the water. He ran it over the cut on her forehead again to wipe the rest of the blood from her skin. Her lids finally parted enough for him to see their color. "It hurts," she couldn't sit up. "The world's spinning."_

" _I told you to run," he rebuked her._

_She shook her head, "they were going to purify you."_

" _You overestimated their strength."_

" _You underestimated them, Sesshomaru. They had you on your knees," she tried to move, but instead vomited into the river. She choked and gagged, her shoulders scrunched together._

_He rubbed her shoulders until the heaving stopped then dipped the cloth into the water again. He wiped her mouth and helped her rinse the sickness from inside. "You should have run. You risked your life and our child's. Is he okay?"_

" _She is just fine," she massaged her belly. "I think she is."_

" _You will give me a son," he leaned her against his chest, letting her rest._

" _You will accept what I give you." She folded her arms._

" _Next time you will run."_

" _No," she denied him. "I won't let them hurt you."_

" _This Sesshomaru does not need protection from a human female."_

_Those were not the right words. Her eyes brimmed with tears. They fled from her eyes, dripping rivers down her cheeks onto his chest and hers. "Why…why…c….c…c…can't…y…y…you admit…they….I…" She was so distraught she couldn't finish her sentence._

_He laughed at her and that only made it worse. She sobbed harder shaking and shivering against him. He lifted her chin and attempted to silence her with a kiss. She pushed back angry at him, "don't make me raise this baby alone? Please?"_

_It was then he understood. She had feared for his life. She was perhaps the only one that knew that he could be brought down if the foe was the right one. She feared raising their child without him. He feared losing her and the life they made._

His arms ache to hold her again. He watches the rise and fall of the chest of the feverish Nina. She is Rin, yet she isn't all the same. He wonders how the memories come to her in these dreams. She only remembers him as loving. There were times he wasn't, there were times Rin wasn't. If anything, he was a flawed lover.

He clenches his free hand that isn't weighed down with Mayumi. He misses Rin so much it hurts and now that her soul is back in this world, dying doesn't seem as appealing because she isn't waiting for him in the afterlife.

He strokes his nieces head lovingly. It's almost morning, just a few more hours. The clinic will be closed today. Everyone has some kind of made up family emergency.

"Simple plants," he says to himself. Nina is asleep. He thumbs his chest where the port-a-cath is. The bag is empty. He removes the tubing from his chest, leaving the IV line in. He sets Mayumi down. He knows two of the herbs. He learned herbs from Nobuatsu as the disease spread. There was no time for pride in those days, no time for battles, only time to save lives. He drops the side rail on the bed and stands on wobbly legs. The herbs used caused the vomiting of blood and the seizures they experienced. It was magic that confined it to only affecting those with at least half their bodies full of yoki driven cells. He sets Mayumi down and covers her up. He did make a promise, but he feels like he is on to something. He forces his legs to work.

"Chichiue?" Taka is in her human form. She runs up to him and catches his arm. "You should be sleeping. You didn't rest last night."

"Taka listen to me," he lifts her chin, "care for her. I have an account in the United States. It's under Sessho Rinata. Did you learn to use computers?"

"Yes?"

He reads the confusion in her eyes. "Set up an email. Take one of my business cards. I will forward you enough money to get her a cochlear implant. Will the family she is with adopt her?"

She shakes her head. "I've listened to them at night. The money would stop and they get more because she is disabled…they are sweet to her. They take care of her and love her but they aren't that wealthy. We don't need your money Chichiue. Her insurance will pay for the implant once it's safe for her to have one."

Relief has never felt so good. Taiyomaru must have healed the damage from the burns. The cochlear will allow her to hear. It's all that he could ask for. "When she has recovered, take her home. Don't let her find me again."

"I thought you would be happy to see her!" Taka hugs her father. "You won't last," she cups his chin and presses their foreheads together.

"I know what the Monk did," he says, suddenly full of energy. "There may be a way to reverse the effects on my body." He glances at Nina, sleeping peacefully. Even in her sleep, she looks like Rin. The fever has slowed down. "She deserves a better life than I can give her Taka." He hobbles to her wondering, _are you in there my heart?_ He touches her shoulder, just over her heart, searching for their bond. Tendrils of yoki drip from his finger into her body. It's nestled within her chest cavity, latent and barely there. _Oh, my heart._ He leans down and kisses her brow. "Do not allow her to travel here again," the words are lead on his tongue.

"I don't understand…Tsukimaru said that Haha-ue loved you and that if you fell in love with this one it would hurt her!"

"You should know better than that. You know we are only fond of each other. Nothing more," he says but stops. _Did she fall in love with me?_ "Taka she isn't Rin. She's Nina Hawthorne." He cups his daughter's chin.

"You aren't going to tell Haha-ue about me are you? I like not being stuck in that house anymore." She laughs, covering her mouth. "You two, trapping me for three centuries."

"It was at your mother's bidding not mine." His legs begin to tremble. "Keep your yoki inward and your scent hidden." He hugs his daughter. "You're going to go into your first heat soon Taka, you remember the symptoms?"

"Sweating, fever, anxiety, increased heart-rate and a feeling of being on fire," she says happily, still the bright child she always was. In a strange way he thinks, she's just like Rin was as a teenager. "Should I contact you? There's no one to be with me…"

"If this works…if what I think will happen comes to pass. I can save Katsumoto," he doesn't regret the suggestion.

"But he's Yuki's."

"You don't need him to bond you, just to relieve the heat when it comes."

"And make a child," she shakes her head at him. "I don't like it Chichiue. She already hates me."

"Then we have nothing to lose." He kisses her forehead. "Do not let her come here again," he says quietly and leaves the room. He limps down a hallway, then opens the door to his office.

"You aren't supposed to be out of bed!" Natsuki screams, storming over to him. "Are you trying to die?"

"No…Haruto, Yoshi, I know the herbs." There are papers strewn over the floor. He sits down on the floor, painfully picking them up. "The disease changed my blood down to the stem cells. I don't have enough to maintain my body any longer, that's why my organs are shutting down and I continue to have seizures. He cursed the herbs he used to only affect those with yoki." He picks up another stack of papers. "My blood in essence is what is killing me."

"You need a bone marrow transplant," Haruto says.

"Exactly," Sesshomaru says as he sits down with the pile of papers strewn on the floor. "These are everyone?"

"All that you have in the office," Haruto sits down next to him, combing a hand through his black hair. "How long do you have Rinata-sama?"

"Days, weeks at most." He winces, holding his chest. It aches like he can't breathe. Both his hearts are racing trying to keep up with the weakness in his body.

"Then we must hurry," Yoshi joins them rifling through the papers. "What are we looking for?"

"Who will match," Haruto quickly speaks. "Does your wife know how to brew coffee?"

"She's not my wife," he spares a glance for Natsuki. "And no."

"Then who is she?" Yoshi asks, picking up the papers.

"More than that," a weak smile crosses his lips as he looks at her. She sits down behind his back and hugs him around the waist. "More than that. Thank you Natsuki," he can feel her yoki flooding his senses, soothing his pain, giving him life. For now.

**End Part One Inferno**


	51. Kagome-Past/Natsuki-Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The disease makes its way to Sesshomaru's home.

**Kagome-past**

The Third Year of the Disease

She helps Nobuatsu wrap the arm of a child who fell and broke it. In the modern world, she learned how to set small breaks. She did rotations in many different units on purpose while passing her clinicals for nursing. She spent half a year in pediatrics, studied under orthopedic doctors and even spent time in plastics to master the art of stitching. She is a collector of medical knowledge. As she wraps the arm, her stomach clenches. It's coming and she knows it. Soon this village will be overrun with the ill and no matter what she asked him in the future, he never told her the cure.

She finishes lacing the arms, using bamboo sticks to keep it still. The child smiles at her as he hops off the counter top to his mother's waiting arms. "Thank you!" The woman bows to her. She's human, like many of the females. It's more common for demon males to be with humans than the other way around.

"That is an ingenious trick," Nobuatsu praises her. His tone is as deep as Sesshomaru's but softer and kinder. "The child would have healed eventually. Like that, he won't suffer deformities."

"I was happy to help," she says, happily. She's been there for a year. The first months she refused to leave her room, sobbing and crying. At night Taisho would drag her from her bed and force her to walk through the forest with him and they would tell stories about Inuyasha. She visited Sota and Sayako once and they came to Sesshomaru's home once. Every few months, she and her son visit the village and try to open the well. It continued to reject her. Deep in her heart, she knew why, fate didn't want the yokai to escape from what was happening. She had already heard rumors of ill demons from all directions. Jaken left months before to help his people with herbs from Nobuatsu and seeds to cultivate in a garden to help his people. There would be no escaping.

Shiori knocks on the door. "Umo, Miko-sama?"

Kagome smiles leaning down. Shiori looks exactly the same as the day they first met. It's odd treating her as a child when they are only seven years apart, but Shiori's demon blood keeps her from aging like a regular child. "What is it?"

"Ka-chan…" the girl's eyes glaze over lightly. "She stopped breathing."

Kagome and Nobuatsu need no more words. She grabs the child's hand and they run out of the hut, through the orchard that is blooming as the summer months approach and to the hut on the other side of the lake. Shizu liked her solitude. Rin is already there performing CPR with her children tagging along behind her. Kagome falls on her knees next to Rin. She checks for a pulse and shakes her head. She holds Rin's hand. "Let her go. She was old." She raises a blanket over the woman.

Shiori sobs and runs. Yuki chases after her. Harutoga and Taiyomaru follow their sister who are all shadowed by Katsumoto. "She asked me, before she lost consciousness," Rin wipes her eyes. "If you would take in Shiori."

"Me? I'm not going to live long enough…I'm already nearing forty. When will she stop being a child?"

"In another century." Nobuatsu kneels down touching the woman's wrist. "I will summon men to bury her."

"See, clearly it should be you and Sesshomaru." She suddenly realizes she has overstepped, revealing information Rin will not discover for years.

"I'm not going to live long enough and I don't know if Sesshomaru would take in a child that isn't his," Rin answers then laughs, "well besides me. Nobuatsu, are you connected to Atsuko?"

"You mean spiritual bonds?" he asks her.

"Kami, I miss ours," Kagome says, although she bites back the need to start crying. It's been a year since she lost Inuyasha. She won't cry again. She can't. There are no tears left for her to shed for her dead lover.

"You could feel it?" Rin is clearly shocked.

"Most of the time," Kagome smiled. "Especially when he was happy, when he smiled. I could feel his love for me."

"I can't feel ours unless he shares it with me," Rin exhales.

Nobuatsu lifts Shizu's body up. "We have our own connection. Each species of demon, because of our yoki, we reach out to those that touch our souls. There is a connection, but it's not as intimate as the ones between dog-demons and their lovers. I go to bury her. Send Shiori to me, when she has returned."

"It's coming isn't it?" Rin asks.

"How much did he tell you?"

"Just that the children were going to get sick soon, but that was years ago."

"You know what soon means to one that is going to live forever. Kami, I want to kill him." She covers her face. "Why couldn't he just tell me that Inuyasha would die? I could have been looking for the monks responsible."

"I wish I knew." Rin comforts the older woman. "He's coming back tonight." The eagerness is missing from Rin's voice.

"It's not the same is it?" Kagome asks her. "He's different somehow."

"He's colder," Rin shivers. "We don't spend time together, not like we used to. He spends his time locked inside of his study, reading those books you gave him. There are so many rumors, Kagome-sama. It's coming isn't it?"

"Yes," she says. "I don't know when. But when it does Rin-"

"Kagome-sama." Hisato ducks his head into the hut where the two women are speaking. "You need to come with me quickly. Now." He doesn't let Kagome catch her breath. He grabs her around the waist. "Rin-sama, stay with Sato until I return."

Kagome is hoisted around the waist and flown through the air before she can stop him. He lands just outside the barrier where a pack of wolves are waiting with Sota and Sayako. Sayako holds a red skinned child in her hands. "No," Kagome covers her mouth, "Hisato stay back."

"Why?"

She stops, knowing that the nature of illnesses, epidemiology are unknown. She grabs Hisato by the arm and says, "please? Just trust me? If you don't, you might get sick too." She knows what it is before Sayako puts the child down in front of her. She touches his forehead. He burns with fever. It's then she sees that Sayako is sweating. "Sota what happened?"

"A peddler came through selling treats," Sota answers her. "Then everyone got sick. We set out with twenty, we're all that's left. Ka-san, please. Tatsuo is so sick."

"He's dehydrated." Kagome touches the skin on his hands, noting how dry they are. "I need to make him a broth. Sayako you too?" The little boy is covered in sores up to his belly, pus leaks from the open blisters.

"My head hurts. I'm burning…and," she removes the furs from her feet. The soles are blistered and angry. "Save my son, please?"

She nods. "Hisato, I need a space no one else can get to or we risk exposing the entire village."

"I don't understand," he comes forward.

"God dammit Hisato!" Kagome screams at him. "Stay back. I don't have time to explain now, listen to me! I don't know if it's airborne or if it's bloodborne. He never told me…" she starts hyperventilating. She can't breathe. First her husband, now her grandson. Her chest aches, her heart races, the world turns black. "I need…I can't…" She collapses.

**Natsuki-past**

She can't take it anymore. There are too many rumors, too much anxiety coming to and from the castle. Her father has already sent word that the numbers of sick have raised. He has been begging her to force Sesshomaru to be with her again. He knows about the black stone, what he doesn't know is that it was made by Hosenki II. It requires spiritual power and Sesshomaru is in steady supply of the right allies. She doesn't have to swear on it. Somehow the stone knows that because of her bond to him, she cannot do him harm and that means that she will not touch Rin either or their children. But she can't take it anymore. She knows he is there in the meeting. She listens outside the door. "wW had an agreement, Kensaku," Sesshomaru states clearly. "You will not send a force to my home. If you do they will meet their end. I offered you sanctuary should the time come and the monks continue their attacks."

"It's not the Monks! The illness is running rampant in the West! What started as a few cases is spreading and you sit comfortably behind that barrier!" Her father roars across the room.

"And my mother sits comfortably in this castle. You do not threaten her!" Sesshomaru scoffs. She can hear the sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"I know when I am outmatched."

Natsuki cringes. She knows Sesshomaru's temper, that was one of the dumbest things her father could have said, to question his strength. She can hear his weapon unsheathing, the yoki on the other side is rising. It's intoxicating. She digs her nails into the wall to avoid opening it. A blast of energy slams into the wall. Her father is cringing, she can smell his charred flesh. "Pathetic," Sesshomaru laughs, then the door opens.

She jumps out of the way as he exits. She gulps as he turns on her. "What are you doing here?"

"I…" she was bold when she first met him. Now he makes her nervous, his scent sends her into a tizzy. She can hardly get her sentences straight. She swallows, "I'm scared…please?"

He rolls his eyes, takes her by the hand and leads her back to his room. She follows like she is a child about to get in trouble. He shuts the door behind him and takes her to his bed, "lay down."

Her breath quickens when he climbs in behind her. She slides into the center of the bed and closes her eyes. His breath is on her neck. "What if it comes here? This illness…"

"It won't," he says firmly, wrapping an arm around her waist.

"You don't know that." She turns over to face him. His eyes are like honey. She licks her lips staring at his mouth. "What if it does?" She reaches out, cupping his face. His lips brush against her fingers.

"It won't." He cups her face and leans his lips in.

She breaths in as their mouths touch. She allows herself to be lost inside the vortex of swirling energy between the two of them. "What do I do if it does?"

He rests his forehead against hers visibly shaken. His brows wrinkles, he grunts uncomfortably. "She's calling me. Listen to me Natsuki. When one is sick with a fever, they need to drink, even if it makes them sick and try to remain cold. If you get sick…if Tsukimaru becomes ill, you both must drink and drink often. Nobuatsu used a concoction of herbs for the blisters. Clay," he closes his eyes as if he is thinking, "mint, garlic, salt, chamomile for the pain."

"Will you come if I get sick?"

"Why would I?"

"Your son?"

"I will take him back to my home," his frosty words send shivers down her spine. "We kissed Natsuki, it means nothing. My heart is with her. I must go now."

Then he leaves and she can't stop her heart from racing. _What if it comes here?_ She goes to find Tsukimaru. She needs to hold her son for fear of losing him too soon.


	52. Sesshomaru-past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the Disease on his doorstep, Sesshomaru must act fast to minimize it's effects.

**Sesshomaru-past**

He flies through the sky from his mother's home to his own. The air is becoming warm again. The summer months are always filled with celebrations. More children are born in the summer but his mind is on his conversation with Natsuki. What if it makes it all the way to his mother's castle in the sky? What will they do then? If Tsukimaru gets sick, he's just a baby, how long would he last? He has several books from Kagome's time, one on childbirth, one on diseases and their treatments with footnotes written by her brother. A list of hand written notes he hasn't sorted through rests in a locked drawer in his study. He tried to aid when Inuyasha was sick, but herbs are not his specialty. His specialty is death, not life. His chest tightens as he flies.

Rin is in the village not the house. She is worried about something. Smelling Tatsuo, Sayako and Sota, ill and distraught and the leftover stench of death that was once Shizu tells him why she is worried.

Nobuatsu stands on the other side of the lake, far away from the stench of illness wafting from Shizu's hut. "What's going on?" he asks the horse demon.

"It's your nephew. His lover and child are ill, blisters, fever," the horse demon runs a hand through his hair. "We aren't prepared for this. If it spreads…"

"Stay here." His mind is racing. He can smell the illness, the same stink that had emanated off his brother's body. He flies over the lake and lands by the door. He knocks, seeing Kagome leaning over his nephew. Taisho is in the hut, voices are low. They are not prepared if this spreads. He has read much of the book on epidemiology since receiving it, but many of the high tech words used, he doesn't understand. They don't have microscopes and ways of testing microbes and counting parts per million. They can't scrape surfaces or observe biomes. They can only fight for life.

"Sesshomaru, stay back!" the Miko yells.

A sting enters his nose, like sake, but not the kind that humans drink. She pours it over her hands as she exits the hut. "Sayako and Tatsuo are sick," she pulls him aside, "O-ni-sama…did you ever finish the book I gave you?"

"I've read it several times." He turns to the lake staring at the clean waters, water that could spread the illness to everyone in the village if they drink from it, but the river. _Already contaminated._

"This is only the beginning," the Miko joins him. "I don't know how it's spread, not yet. We have to keep our hands clean. You shouldn't go in there. You could spread it. Kami, I'm so scared." She pivots quickly and flies into his chest. He holds his arm outwards, stiff. They do not usually have this kind of intimate contact. She shakes against him crying. "Tatsuo is throwing up blood. It's just like Inuyasha but it didn't spread then. Shippo saw him, you saw him. It's spreading now. Something changed. The weather's getting warmer. I can't keep him cool."

He's silent as she wails against him. The Miko has experienced too much sadness. He finally lowers his arms to wrap around her. He has never felt her hair. It's not smooth like Rin's. It's thick and wavy. It gathers around her waist. He lets his nose fall on top of her head and breathes in her scent, gently stroking her back. There are no words he can think of. He can see Tatsuo from inside the hut. The boy's entire body is red. Blisters cover him up to his torso, his hikama are soiled with blood and pus. It drips in rivers down the corners of his eyes.

"What if he dies? Will Tenseiga work? He's part human," she cries against him.

He wonders himself, would Tenseiga allow him to bring the child back? Would he be whole? _What is going on? Yokai don't get sick_. He lifts her chin, intent on leaving only for her hand to tangle into the back of his hair and suddenly Kagome's lips are on his. The second his eyes open fully, he sees Rin standing with a pail of water. Her bottom lip trembles. Sesshomaru pushes Kagome off him. She wipes her mouth. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"

The Miko is cut off by Rin's upturned palm flying against her face. It lands so hard that the Miko ends up on the grass by the lake, blood drips from a fattened lip. "I can't believe you," Rin says to her, "I can't believe after Natsuki you would do something like that!" She glares at Sesshomaru. "And you…you won't even touch me and you comfort her?" She drops the pail of water and flees.

He lifts the Miko off the ground, licking his thumb in the process, then rubs it along the fattened bleeding lip. "You will not do that again." He knows she understands he means with the kiss. "Ever." Rin will have to be placated later. He will find a way to save his tiny nephew. "Sota," he calls. The Miko lifts the water into the hut.

Sota's eyes are red as he leaves the hut, his face gaunt.

"Do you know how you were infected?"

"It's not me. I'm not sick." His hands are shaking.

"You were around those ill?" Sesshomaru questions him.

"I've been around them all, cleaned up after them. I'm not sick. We…there was a peddler. I'm so stupid O-ji-sama. A peddler came, I don't remember his name, but I did remember his face. He was the same one that sold treats in the village where Ka-san used to live. He came south. We bought his sweet rice. After two weeks Sayako and Tatsuo started feeling ill. So did everyone else, but then it spread, even to the ones that hadn't eaten the food he sold."

"How long ago was that?"

"Two months. Tatsuo, he's so sick. Once the vomiting begins, there's only…days," he breaks down falling on his knees. "I can't lose my son," he covers his eyes and begins to cry.

Sesshomaru kneels down next to him, a hand on his shoulder. "Keep them cold. Put them in the lake, the water will help," he pauses. In one of the books he read, he knows that disease can be spread through the water. Their lake is isolated. "No the river," he says, then wonders to himself, _how can we chill them?_ "The river water will already be contaminated," his mouth dries. Water is regularly drawn from the river to sustain the village. It's only a matter of time.

"Sota, how long does it last? From start to finish?"

"It depends, for some weeks, others months. Sayako has been eating herbs to help with the fever."

"Stay with your lover." He flies to the other side of the lake, landing next to Nobuatsu. "We need to begin cultivating herbs that will stop a fever and treat the blisters. Tadashi!" he yells at the top of his lungs.

The white haired sentinel comes only seconds later. "Yes Sesshomaru-sama?"

"Send an emissary to the fox demons. Send for Shippo," he knows the fox child can make their garden grow faster. He can inseminate seeds that would not grow on their own in greater numbers than if left to grow naturally.

"I will begin tilling more patches of land," Nobuatsu says quickly.

"Find Rin, she will help you."

"Sesshomaru-sama, Shiori's mother died today," Nobuatsu says quietly. "The child will need someone to care for her."

He closes his eyes. The village has not been around long enough to deal with orphans and an orphaned hanyou outside his barrier, no one would care about. "Can you take her in?"

"My home is already full, but I will speak to Atsuko." The horse demon moves to the empty plots of land around the lake.

"Sato?" He sees Hisato's brother patrolling the village.

The black haired demon walks over to him. "Yes?"

"I go south. Inform my family I do not know when I will be returning. Do not allow any on the other side of the lake into Shizu's hut. Sota is there with his lover and child. They have the illness." He doesn't allow emotion to touch his words. "Tell the villagers to only take water from the lake."

"Sesshomaru-sama?" Sato asks, brows pinched together in confusion.

"It's here," he says, his hands feel like they are on fire. "Send a message north to Koga and inform him that his sister is sick. Find my children and move them back to the house. Tell them they aren't allowed to leave," he pauses thinking of the child that now has no mother or father. "Take Shiori to my home."

"Yes Sesshomaru-sama," Sato flies into the air.

"Where are you going Onisama?" Kagome asks him.

"We need to chill the village, Touma's halberd? Did you purify it or seal it?"

"Seal it…you have to be careful going there. Do you remember how to protect yourself? The way germs are transmitted?"

He closes his eyes. He's done nothing but read in the last three years since his brother died. Battle has been scarce, but Inuyasha's death has plagued him. He has read the same book over and over and come up blank. "Cover the mouth, wash the hands. The river is already contaminated. While I am away, you and Rin will prepare the village. The barrier will be opened for all who are sick. You will service the ill. Find an area to seclude them." In modern times they called it isolation, but he didn't have the materials needed to make a ward for only those who were sick. "Do not let my children back into the village. Make peace with Rin." It's all he can manage to say before he flies into the skies. They will need a stronger sake to sterilize their hands, for that he knows where to go. There will be no sleep as he journeys.

Touma's halberd will freeze the village slowing the fever, if he can find it.


	53. Yuki-Past/Rin-Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuki comforts Shiori after the loss of her mother. Anguish finally takes it's toll on Kagome.

**Yuki-past**

She finds her friend's scent outside the barrier. Her brothers are with her this time. She knows she's not allowed to cross the bright blue line without someone following her, not after what happened last time. She hasn't dared. "Katsumoto?" she calls her guard. She is sure he is somewhere nearby. "You two can't come with me."

"Yuki the last time you left alone you were almost killed," Harutoga is no longer the timid boy he was in his youth. He's fourteen now and has learned to fight as well as she has. He can call his whip from both his hands and Taiyomaru seems to be developing more of his uncle's traits. He can throw white and red blades from his hands but has also dokkasu and a whip. He can glide higher than they both can and oddly when he is angry, even for a child, his yoki can choke a room.

"Katsumoto?" she calls again, trying to see if her damned guard is anywhere nearby. "This isn't good. She wasn't supposed to go by herself. Okay we go, but we mask our yoki. If we find any monks, Taiyomaru, you and Harutoga keep them back okay?" She knows what to do. Chichiue spent months teaching them after that day she was attacked.

They trail behind her as they leave the barrier. She sniffs the air finding her way through the grass and fields. The forest is thick around the barrier. It's plentiful in deer and other wildlife that feed their village. "She's near the river," Taiyomaru says as they make their way quietly through the forest. She can smell it too. Shiori smells like maple leaves with sap stuck to them.

"She's crying," Harutoga adds.

"Duh idiot, her mother just died." Yuki jumps over a large rock into the branches of a tree. She swings from branch to branch rather than walking to avoid leaving tracks. A part of her wonders how old she'll be when her mother dies too. Ka-san is human after all.

Her brothers follow and after several minutes of swinging and jumping they find the bat hanyou on her knees next to the raging river. Yuki approaches her first, resting a hand on her shoulder. Her friend can't speak. She only falls into Yuki's arms crying. "What happens to me now?"

"You can stay at our house," Yuki offers. Their house is big and there is always extra space. She dreams about kicking Hisato out of the room that used to be Jaken's. But then she remembers how quiet it's been without the imp there. He never came back after he left. She suddenly feels very cold and afraid.

"Yuki someone's coming." Harutoga's hand glow with the power of his whips.

Shiori wipes her eyes. "Get behind me." Her hands raise and they covered in one of her barriers. "They won't be able to get through this."

"I know this smell." Taiyomaru steps forward. His feet are bare as they crunch against the dirt of the forest. "It's Jaken and other Kappi. They're sick."

"How can you smell that?" Harutoga asks him.

Yuki only rolls her eyes. "Why did you get all the gifts?"

Suddenly Taiyomaru is soaring into the air, high in the sky. Shiori extends the barrier to cover him. Yuki covers her mouth in shock, Harutoga sits down and then Sato is outside their tiny barrier. "You need to come with me now. You too Shiori. You will join the children in their home."

**Rin-past**

Jaken comes marching up to the barrier with a horde of Kappi. His face is tinged in pain, so unlike the jolly, green imp that graced their home for the last ten years. He carries with him many of his kind, some are on stretchers, too raspberry red from the disease tearing their bodies apart to stand. Rin covers her mouth and her eyes, not knowing where she should take them. He waits outside the barrier for her to approach. His eyes are downcast and his hands shake on Nintojo. "Jaken!" Rin calls and runs to him. She leaves the barrier with Hisato trailing behind her. "What happened?"

"This…these were the ones that could travel. We were too sick to grow the herbs. I…we need help," he says sadly.

She never knew where his kind came from. One night after making love, she asked Sesshomaru when his friendship with Jaken began. The dog-demon insisted that they were not friends and that he had no fond feelings for the imp that worshipped the ground Sesshomaru walked on. In the end, she learned that Jaken and his people had been fighting a powerful demon that was slaughtering his people. The demon happened to be in the way of Sesshomaru who dispatched of it in one fell hit. After that, Jaken abandoned his people to follow Sesshomaru and the rest from there was history. Deep down she knows that her lover does feel fondly for the imp and Sesshomaru will be devastated when he returns. More than he already is.

"Sato didn't tell you when he would return?" she asks her loyal guard.

"No," Hisato hangs back, refusing to come closer.

"Are you scared?" She laughs at him.

"Kagome-sama said something about getting too close and then getting sick," he inches back to the barrier. "It seems humans are immune to whatever this is. Send them to the fields near Shizu's hut where Sota and his family already reside."

"Don't be so scared," she laughs knowing that Sesshomaru will find the cure. It's somewhere locked in his mind. _But why couldn't he just tell me? Is Jaken going to die? Shippo? Akari?_ She spares a glance at her proud inu-yokai guard who has lived for so long an outcast among his people, _Hisato?_

She shakes the thoughts out. There's no time. She needs to move these youkai into the barrier. This much yoki will attract unwanted visitors before long and they've managed to remain hidden. She leans over and shoulders one of the litters that is carrying two sick Kappi demons and starts hauling it into the barrier. She leads them slowly to the grasses on the other side of the lake. They will need shelters built from the rains and water to drink. "Jaken, just get everyone comfortable. I'll send for the villagers to make small huts for the sick. Are you ill?"

She has never seen Jaken's face like this before. It's downcast, black eyes are darker than she has seen them in the past, if that is even possible. He is normally full of complaints and is now quiet and subdued. "Not yet," he wipes tears from his eyes. "Rin," he hugs her knees because he can't reach any higher.

She falls on her knees next to him and for the first time since they met, she is the one that provides comfort.

Hours later the area is swarmed with demons, hanyous and humans building huts for the ill. She asked that three be built before night falls. They keep the materials stored in piles inside a larger hut so that when new families come they have somewhere to live. The planks are precut with a stone edifice that keeps thatching for the roof dry, surprisingly that was Sesshomaru's idea. There were times he would find Rin wet and shivering inside of Kaede-sama's hut and complain that she was not being properly cared for.

The final hut is almost finished after hours of work. "What are you doing?" Kagome asks.

"They need somewhere to live," she quips and walks away. The younger woman is still exasperated with the elder one. "This is my home." She'll use rank and standing to remind the Miko of the kindness that has been extended to her.

"You can't do it like this, they could get sick," the Miko turns on Rin in a fury. "Why didn't you ask me before you did this? You've exposed everyone!"

"What are you talking about?"

"No, stop! Everyone stop!" she yells at them, waving her hands in the air to get the attention of the demons and humans building the shelters.

"They need to finish!" Rin rebukes her. "Continue, she," icy glares pass between the two, "is not in charge here. I am. This is my home remember? Or have you forgotten along with who Sesshomaru belongs to!?"

"You should have asked me," Kagome pants out. "You have no idea how diseases are transmitted. It could be airborne and now they've all breathed it in!"

"And if it is, then why did you invite your son here?"

"Don't you dare!" Pain flashes through her eyes.

"Dare what? I'm not the one trying to replace a dead lover with his brother!"

Kagome's hand comes up to strike Rin's cheek, but is easily blocked. Rin twists the wrist behind Kagome's back, until Kagome cries in pain. The Miko pushes back attempting to throw Rin on the ground, only for the younger woman to shift her weight and Kagome slams side first into the ground and hisses in pain. She barely has a second to think before Rin's foot connects with Kagome's stomach.

Taisho comes running from the hut of his brother and sick nephew, "Obasan! Ka-san, stop it!" He tries to grab Rin by the shoulders only for Hisato to grip his shoulder and force him back.

"No," Hisato growls at him. "Let them settle it."

"Get your hands off my son!" Kagome's spiritual power hurricanes in the air. It swirls a pink torrent around her body and flings Hisato into the lake, while she rolls away from Rin's fists.

Hisato splashes head first into the shallow rocks grunting in pain, splitting his head open.

Suddenly a knife is to Kagome's throat. "If you think of doing that within my village again, you will pay," Rin doesn't recognize her own voice. It's cold and dark and so many things that she doesn't have words for.

"Rin-sama." A white hand covers hers gripping the knife. Nobuatsu stands behind her, the voice of reason in the madness. "More death will not solve this."

For a moment she hates the horse-demon because he is correct. Everyone is staring at them like they are crazy. The work has stopped and the field is quiet. She lowers the knife and releases her friend.

"If Sesshomaru were here, he would say the same thing," Kagome pleads with her. She's worse for the wear with yellow grass in her hair and a bruised cheek.

"Because you know him so well? Or is this some special connection the two of you have made because he likes learning about medicine from your time? Is that your goal? To lure him with knowledge?"

"Rin stop it! I'm sorry okay? It was wrong," tears line the sides of her cheeks. "I shouldn't have kissed him. My grandson is sick okay, and my son's wife…" she wipes her cheeks trying to keep the tears in, "Inuyasha."

Then Rin remembers his words, _I will get very sick._ Soon she will see her own lover covered in this rash and debilitated. Her bottom lip shivers, she falls on Kagome's shoulders, crying. She cries for Inuyasha, for her nephew, for the dark days ahead. They sob against each other, unable to stop.

"Women," Hisato mutters as he shakes the lake water off his body.

"Sorry Hisato," Kagome cringes as she is stared down.

Blood seeps from an injury in his head.

"Ka-san," Taisho whispers taking his mother's arm, "it's Tatsuo…"


	54. Sesshomaru-Present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru struggles to maintain the will to live. His family rallies around him to encourage him not to give up.

**Sesshomaru-present**

His body aches as he flips through the test results with his two colleagues The night was long and now the sun is beginning to bloom casting a fresh glow of light into his stale office. It casts jaded shadows on the floor. Natsuki still sits behind with arms around his waist, silently giving him the strength to remain upright. "You're back is injured," she runs her hand up his spine. He feels relief as her fingers dance along his skin, healing the damage from the car that hit him earlier.

"Thank you," he whispers.

Confused eyes observe the two. Izayoi has fallen asleep on his desk. Tsukimaru still sits in a chair by the window, while Taiyomaru and Harutoga rest against the wall, with their legs outstretched. There will be a reckoning if he can find the cure with Tsukimaru. Oddly the nurses failed to notice the color change in Nina's eyes, too consumed with worry that Natsuki will end them. "I should check our patient," Yoshi rises off the ground.

"She can see now," Sesshomaru says, his mind still in the papers in front of him.

"What?" Yoshi and Haruto say at the same time.

"Our blood has healing properties. Clearly whatever happened to her eyes was caused by an injury that was curable with our blood," Sesshomaru lies in order to avoid Natsuki knowing who the girl is. "The light overwhelms her," he tries to keep the fondness out of his voice. She doesn't have all the memories, not yet, she can't. He'll become cold soon, worse than ice and angrier than a hurricane in the summer. The years won't be kind to either one of them. She doesn't have the most painful memories, the ones where he pushed her away as the disease raged to compensate for the emotions he was too arrogant and scared to express and the pain he refused to admit. There was no time then, only life and that was all that mattered. "Keep the lights low. I wish to see her before she is discharged."

"Sure," the younger doctor exits the room.

"What are you looking for?" Natsuki combs his hair with her claws. The motion is relaxing but it's just a reminder of what he lost centuries before. Rin could anticipate his needs, Natsuki cannot.

"I believe we are looking for a match," Haruto says. "Is there anyone else Sessho?"

"My name is Sesshomaru," he says, in a tone entirely too stern. He's tired of playing the game, the deception that has been his life for the last seventy years for the sake of finding a medicine that would save his kind. He drops the papers and rubs his temples. "Bring me Bakusaiga."

"We talked about this," Natsuki quakes.

"It's impossible," he says.

"Sesshomaru? You impersonated your own father?" Haruto picks up another stack of papers and begins flipping through them. "You need a fresh dose of stem-cells."

"No one is having a baby anytime soon and you can see here with the T-cells and here with stem-cells, this one is from a fox-demon and this one is from a wolf-demon and this is Tsukimaru," he points at another paper, "and this one is my daughter Yuki. The closest matches are from my own kind. This one is from a demon named, Sato," he shakes his head. "There are no matches. Bring me Bakusaiga," he demands of Natsuki.

" _When the time comes," it was after the first seizure that left him debilitated for a day, unable to get out of bed. "I will not sit in my bed like Katsumoto." He held his white pearled katana in his hand, gripping the end and aiming for his stomach._

_"_ _No," Natsuki shook her head holding the hilt while she sat next to him, against his hips. "I won't let you. Katsumoto didn't because he believes in you. He trusts you to find the cure," she was terrified._

_"_ _What honor is there in wasting away in a bed? If I can't move, I cannot save us. You will bring me my katana," he said coldly. "I will join her."_

_Natsuki gripped the light blue blanket on their bed and yelled, "I will not help you end your life sooner. You found the cure to the disease. You have saved countless lives, you will save ours."_

"What is Bakusaiga?" Haruto picked up another set of papers, "who is this? It's close to your results from before."

 _Inuyasha,_ Sesshomaru takes the paper, his hand immediately shaking at the sight of the results. He had coded each sample he had taken to avoid detection. "He's dead." It makes him ill that his voice cracks when he speaks. Inuyasha's numbers were close had he survived and never fallen ill, he may have been able to save him.

"Who was he?"

"My brother, half-brother." He throws the paper aside to avoid the pain of remembering Inuyasha's death.

"Are there any other siblings? Other children? Who was this?" Haruto hands him another paper. "This one is also close. Not as close as your brother."

"Taka," he sets the paper down. It is their secret and he has agreed to let her go. She wants her freedom and he will give it to her. "She's missing."

He can feel Natsuki's nose dig into his back and tears drip down his back. She misses her daughter. It's been ten years. "We can't find her," Natsuki whimpers against his back.

"I'm sorry, forgive me for causing you pain." He sorts through the papers. "Do you have any other siblings?"

"Why a sibling?" Natsuki asks.

Sesshomaru tosses the papers down. "We usually try to find allogenic donors. But demon blood is versatile." He picks up another stack of results from his children. "Neither one of you will match. We've already been using your blood to sustain me," he says to his children that are resting against the wall.

"What is allo…whatever you said?" Natsuki asks him.

"A blood relative." Sesshomaru thinks of the dog in the other room. "The only issue is I don't know what markers would work."

"Taka then?" Tsukimaru asks with a tone that screams his guilt.

"Did you suddenly find her Tsukimaru?" He glares at his youngest son. He won't kill Tsukimaru if he survives, but the child will know his place.

"Chichiue," Harutoga pipes up. "My lover is worried about you. The children would like to visit."

He shakes his head. "No."

"We need someone who's HLA profile matches yours." Haruto picks up the stack that he had discarded.

"Taka won't have HLA," he rifles through the papers. "I have HLA…but only partially. Those would have been supplied from Taiyomaru. Tsukimaru you and Taka do not have an immune system."

"Sesshomaru, my friend. A sibling?" Haruto's eyes are dark. He had not slept in a day.

"I had two brothers. They are both long dead." One blissfully dead but then he closes his eyes and thinks, "there is one other."

"Where are the results?"

It's happening again, his body is tremoring. "Natsuki," he winces as he feels the blood bubbling in his stomach. It aches and burns this time. It feels like his heart is going to explode. The pain is worse than when he was sick. He leans away from the papers and heaves against his control. His body convulses and all that comes up are scatterings of blood that splatter the office floor. "Dammit," he wretches again.

Both sons are off the floor and pulling him up by the arms. Natsuki leans over him, trying to stop the bleeding with her yoki but this time it's not responding. "We need to get him more blood."

He coughs, covering his mouth and he loses more. "No…bring my katana."

"No you stubborn ass," Natsuki rebukes him with tears in her eyes.

"I won't die like this." He's panting trying to stay upright. His claws dig into the carpet. "I won't be a dog trapped in a bed, unable to move," breathing is getting harder.

"You plan to kill yourself?" Haruto pushes back Sesshomaru's hospital shirt revealing the central line that's still in. "If you were intent on that, you wouldn't have left that in."

"Chichiue you're so close," Harutoga helps his father up. "Please?" He sees Rin in the one brown eye Harutoga has. "Ka-san would want you to fight," the words come out low and desperate.

It hurts. His stomach aches. His spine is on fire. Even moving his fingers makes his eyes water. He shakes his head, reaching up to remove the line.

Somehow Natsuki has returned with another large bag of blood from Taiyomaru and Tsukimaru. "Taiyomaru," he calls his son whose long hair is a replica of his mother's. "I told you not to give more. You're going to kill yourself."

"So are you," he leans down and lifts his father up. "You need to rest. This isn't what she would have wanted." Taiyomaru's skin is pale. His eyes are lined. It's obvious he has given too much.

He shakes his head. "What she would have wanted?" _She's sitting in the other room and I can't even speak to her._ She didn't know this was the husk he would become, because he survived, that he would have to watch her die and those they cared about. His fingers tremble against his will.

"He needs sleep," Natsuki calls to his sons, "if you are going to save him. You need to be quick about it. He can call the sword."

"I'll do my best," Haruto says as Sesshomaru is carried limply out of the room.

She remains. She can't watch him like this. It hurts too much.


	55. Mayumi-Present/Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mayumi tries to cheer up Sesshomaru. Meanwhile Taka says goodbye to her father.

**Mayumi-present**

She wakes up to her body being shuffled. It's early. The eerie white clock on the wall says it's six. She rubs her groggy eyes. Arms pick her up out of the bed. "Get up little one. Chichiue needs to lay down." She is met with skunk-like hair and two different colored eyes. She learned from biology that Harutoga's eyes are called, heterochromia. The first time she saw him was when he was just a baby, technically so was she. In fact she is a year older than he is in the Edo era. They were born a year apart but now centuries separate them. Which is why it's hilarious when he calls her the 'little one'.

"I'm older than you," she mumbles as she finds her footing.

He only laughs in reply and ruffles her hair. "I'll be out front. We're going to breakfast then I'm taking you back to my house to wash up."

"I don't want to go! What about Ojisama?" She's panicked. He could die in his sleep and she would miss it or he could get worse. He's pale and more gaunt than he was before.

"There's nothing you or I can do now and you have school today."

"I was suspended," she admits sheepishly.

Harutoga bursts out laughing, "you would be! Come on."

"Let me say good-bye to him? Please?" It might be the last time she sees him and she knows it.

"I'll be outside."

But it's not on Ojisama that her eyes are on. It's the drawn white curtain across from him and Yoshi saying, "I can't believe it."

She inches over to the curtain and pulls it back enough to see that Yoshi is unwinding a white, gauze bandage from the girl's head. The girl's eyes are downcast but so vividly brown compared to the greyish white they were the day before. She holds her hands up to her face, whining lightly, while her dog nudges her hands into her computer that is next to her. The voice reader comes on and says something that Mayumi can't make out. She was never taught English.

Behind them, Tsukimaru hauls her Uncle's shivering body in. He's plopped into the bed with a painful groan and then hooked back up to a bag of blood to keep him from dropping into a cascade of seizures.

The girl's fingers inch up to Yoshi's face and her eyes squint as she sets her hands on his face. Yoshi responds and the girl shakes her head. He says something again and tears well in the corners of her eyes. The dog barks at Yoshi and even Mayumi thinks she understands that it would be better if she spoke to her uncle. Yoshi offers the girl his hand and helps her walk over to Ojisama.

His eyes are blackened around the sides, his face is gaunt and he looks pale. She realizes he hasn't eaten all night and probably didn't the night before either. The room is empty now except for Yoshi, Ojisama and this girl. She observes curiously, the girl being led over to her Uncle. "What are you doing? He needs to rest," she protests, not wanting her uncle disturbed.

"She can't understand my accent. His English is better," Yoshi drops the bar on the side of the bed and tells the girl something that involves holding his arm out to the empty side of the bed. "Rinata-sama? Rinata-sama, okido."

Sesshomaru groans, eyes unfurrowing so slowly it makes Mayumi scared. His lips are cracked and crease into a smile when his eyes open. "Nina," her Uncle says softly and dryly. She knows that voice. Ojisama was terrifying five hundred years before. He was almost always quiet, barely spoke but when he was with Rin, his voice rose the way it did while he speaks to the girl. She can't understand what they are saying between the voice reader and the words her Uncle speaks, but there is something tender in the way he wipes the tears off the girl's cheeks with the tips of his claws and seems to reassure her.

Mayumi's fingers grip themselves as she steps forward to get a better view. Not for the first time she wishes she were educated on this side of the well so she could understand what is being said. The girl hugs her Uncle around the neck, an offense that would have landed her in the grave if it was five hundred years before, but he returns the embrace patting her back. He even lightly kisses the girl's forehead before she is escorted from the room with her belongings and her white dog. "She looks like Obasan," she says as she sits down next to him.

"Can you keep a secret Mayumi?" He cocks his head to the side while his eyes begin to close again.

"Sure," she touches the central line on his chest. "Does it hurt?"

He raises an eyebrow at her. "You should know better than that. She is Rin or rather she has Rin's soul."

"What? Then how could you let her go?!" Some things make no sense. There is a room in the castle in the sky that is filled with pictures of Rin, their children and a desk where he wrote his memories of her. If he isn't in the library, he is in there staring at old pictures, pining for a love Mayumi can't understand. She's never been in love. Izayoi tells her it's because she never saw them before they were a couple and the back and forth, but her brothers and Izayoi did. They saw when he was unsure of himself, when Rin wasn't sure if she wanted him and the culmination of years of suppressed feelings.

"Some things aren't meant to be twice, Mayumi. I'm dying, why should she watch me? Like this, she'll go on and live her life without another pain inflicted by me."

"She would want to be by your side again and you know it. She loved you," Mayumi argues, half-wanting to get up and run out the door. "Ojisama, please don't go. Don't die." She falls on his neck, hugging him tightly.

"I'm trying little one," he exhales heavily as his eyes close again.

"You need to eat."

"Nothing would be tender enough. That hit from the car earlier started this. My organs are shutting down. I won't be able to metabolize solid food now."

She wipes her eyes."I can't do this Ojisama. What if I find you wild boar. You loved wild boar."

"A child's offering."

"You're stupid."

"It's impolite to upset the ill."

"Unless they're a fourteen hundred year old, cynical dog-demon. How can you let her go? You loved her so much it's killing you. She won't be there if you die. Neither will To-san. That means no one will survive, Shippo, Jaken, Katsumoto, even Harutoga and Yuki will die like this. How can you let them?"

"Now you're manipulating me. I need to rest Mayumi or I won't last. If you're so worried about my eating habits find a broth for me. Something that isn't made from stale vegetables and is mild in taste."

"Don't die while I'm gone? Please?"

He waves her off and she fears leaving the threshold of the office but Harutoga is already at the door, grabbing her by the wrist, not giving her a chance to look back. "He needs to rest."

"How long Harutoga?"

"Soon. It's progressing much faster than Katsumoto's is. He's been fighting it for too long."

**Interlude X**

_It hurts, for the first time it hurts, stings and she feels herself being split open by his shaft. He pushes her down on all fours. His eyes are red. His hands shiver up her body, making goosebumps. The air around her is electrified as if it is emitting his power. His teeth tear into her back and then a wet tongue digs into the broken skin of her back. He falls off her onto the grass of a field of daisies, next to a hot-springs that's lit by lamps hanging on a sakura tree, asking her why she made him do that._

Nina bolts upright, immediately reaching for Lucy's paw. She signs furiously into the rough pads everything that happened in the dream, but then as she does, for once she watches her hands, in shock, in awe that this has happened and she can see again.

Taka observes Nina flexing her hands and then going through the alphabet one by one, making the signs and caressing her own fingers. _As if it's the first time she is seeing them. Thank you, Taiyomaru._ Brown eyes that were once vacant, winter-like orbs now cast their glow on Lucy, her loyal white dog, not just feeling the silky texture of her fur but also the deep muscles, the way her hair sways when she moves and the red of her eyes. Nina lifts the paw up again and signs, _your eyes are just like his. I'm so confused._

 _You and me both, sweetie._ Saying goodbye to her father cut her heart out, because it will be goodbye. He won't last the week and the worst part for Taka is that she can't be there with him, holding his hand as he goes and that his human lover, who he has missed for so long will continue her life and then she wonders if youkai are reincarnated or is this just a human fate? Must he die and live again and then they'll be together or was this their last chance?

A scream outside the door and Hannah's dusty scent come running through the examination door. She grabs Nina by the face, and screams again. "She can see?" She looks at the younger doctor for confirmation and then at the nurse. They both nod and break into a layered explanation, using big words that confuse Hannah, but she's so happy she doesn't know they are lying.

Taka licks her lips, staring at the younger doctor. His broad shoulders made her wonder what they would be like between her legs and she feels an ache growing. _Great,_ she rolls her eyes as she sits next to Nina, listening to the directions for discharge. _Once again, I want what I can't have. Chichiue won't let him out of the office and might kill him…but…_

 _Hungry?_ Nina signs in front of Taka's face.

 _Hungry for something…at this rate I'll never get to have a relationship._ There's something exotic about the unknown. About wanting to experience love but not finding it and wondering from where it will come. She's sacrificed the last five years of her life for Nina but the rewards far outweigh the cost.

She's passed a dog treat, which she accepts begrudgingly, surrendering to her fate.

They are released after being asked to stay in the city for the next week. Izayoi will come twice, once in three days and again at the end of the week to do blood tests and if they show her numbers returning to normal, the girl will be free to go back to the United States.

As they are led out, Taka sees her mother slumped in the office chair and nurses cleaning up a blood covered office. Heart ache is evil, it makes her feel like she can't breathe.

Nina pats her leg, encouraging Lucy to keep walking and as she steps out of the office, a piece of her is left behind.

Taka places back the conversation between her father and Nina when he discharged her.

_"_ _Rinata-sama, wake up," the younger, hotter doctor had said, shaking her father's shoulder to wake him up._

_"_ _What is it?" His eyes adjusted slowly, so lined it was like someone had carved ravines into the sides of his eyes._

_"_ _She doesn't understand us. My accent is too heavy," the young doctor told him._

_"_ _She wouldn't, would she?" He smiled, her father smiled, so widely that it cracked his features, lit the gold to honey in his eyes and then he patted the bed next to him._

_Nina sat down and nervously put her hands on his jaw and chin, but not before she tenderly stroked the markings on his cheeks, making her father's breath catch. Taka was forced to shake the feeling that there was something so wrong about seeing her father withhold himself from doing more than talking to the girl. His heart rate increased and a sheen of sweat broke out on his body and it wasn't from the end stages, Taka knew that. "Little one," he said to her, tracing her cheeks, her jawbone, her eyes and her ears. He pulled her forehead to his mouth and then it was Nina who suddenly smelled like a hot summer morning. "You are going to have such a wonderful life now. So full of meaning and joy." He coughed and held her wrists, his hands shook. "You will live to graduate high-school, to go to college, to find a husband, to see your children, your grandchildren. You'll find love and it will warm your heart."_

_Nina pulled out her computer and the new feminine voice said, "but what about you?"_

_"_ _I've had my time."_

_Taka shook at Nina's feet, broken at those words. It wasn't enough time, not by far._ I'm not grown up Chichiue, please.

_"_ _But you can't die."_

_"_ _Death is inevitable and I am so lucky, Nina. Because the best, most beautiful patient was saved for last. I will die knowing I gave you my strength, that I have always given you my strength and that our hearts will always be bound together and I have given you life, again."_

_Nina shook her head, not wanting to believe it._

_"_ _No tears. It's been a good life and once again, you will radiate your light for all to see. You don't have to fear death anymore." He cleaned her cheeks of tears. "No tears, this is a happy day. You can see again. Your vision will never fade, you can see the sun now, the way it rises in the sky, the golden glow, the moon and how it lights the night, the green of trees and the red of flowers. Sweet girl." He held her and combed her hair. "If I could give you back your hearing I would. You will always be in my heart."_

_"_ _You can't die." Nina broke into sobs, unable to control herself._

_Taka licked her lips and then tears began to leave her eyes, dripping down her fur and splattering the white tiled floor._

_"_ _My time has come, after so long, I can let go," Chichiue said and Taka started whining. He had to live. He had to._

_I'm him now,_ Taka thinks as they ride in the car back to the hotel room. In her first life, Nina was a little orphan girl her father found in the woods, sheltered for a year and then gave to the village to raise, but now Nina was her little girl and he wanted her live a life of meaning, to fall in love, to know happiness and flourish. _I can't be a dog forever_ , Lucy exhales puffing hot air onto Nina's lap.

"What's wrong Lucy?" Hannah pets her absentmindedly.

_If only I could tell you._

Nina signs, _"She's been sad since we came here."_

"Maybe she misses home," Hannah says quietly, letting her daughter feel her lips.

Nina's hand flies up, just as the sunrises and she finally knows what gold is. She holds her hand out to her mother, asking what it is, _sun, gold, trees, green with brown trunks, clouds are white and puffy, and tickle your nose. The sky is blue, like lakes and trees and cars come in different colors, some so plain you don't see them and others so loud you can't stop looking._ But then Nina picks up a mirror and looks at herself, touching her eyes, her nose, her high cheek bones and looks out the window, _I look like them._

Lucy cries in earnest, it all started here and the one person she wanted to hold her now was her mother, but she was certain if Natsuki were to discover her, Taka would be locked away again, only allowed to breed and nothing more. She buries her snout into Nina's stomach, hoping they don't see her tears. _Oh, Chichiue,_ she whimpers. It was one thing to know he was sick and on his death bed, but something else to know his life would end soon and they had said their final goodbye.


	56. Yuki-Past/Kagome-past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tatsuo succumbs to the disease. Kagome and Rin settle what happened with Rin's lover.

**Yuki-past**

The screams reverberate throughout the field of grass. Cries of pain, feral howls that she is unused to hearing. The green and yellow tall-grass is usually the setting of children running and playing tag, now it's the scene of mourners. Yuki leans near the doorframe of the ramshackle hut that once belonged to Shiori and her mother. It reeks of blood and death and Yuki can't help but wipe her eyes and blow her nose on the front of her short lavender kimono. She's never seen a child die before. Maybe once, when a fox hanyou fell in the river, but Chichiue brought him back. Ka-san called him, using their bond and then the boy was brought back. Harutoga cried because he couldn't get into the water fast enough but then Dogface was angry because Yuki and Harutoga had run off in different directions.

Her brothers are behind her standing nervously feet away with a piece of cloth wrapped around their mouths and noses to keep them from breathing germs. They weren't supposed to leave their home but she could hear the screaming from their house. She ran to her mother's apothecary in the closet and spiked some milk she gave to Katsumoto. The idiot should know better than to take anything from her. He passed out within minutes, making their escape to the village, to find out what was happening that much easier.

She covers her mouth sobbing. Tatsuo was almost eight years old. Almost a year younger than Taiyomaru and suddenly she's afraid that he will get sick too. "We should go home." She paws at her brothers, to get them to back away.

But she can't take her eyes off her aunt.

Kagome is flattened on top of the child with his parents. Sayako's eyes are bloodshot, Sota threw up too. Blood covers the floor and drips from the eyes of the child. They wail and cry for the child that is no longer among the living. Then Yuki stares at Sayako, her skin is red, not from crying for the child she lost but because she is sick too.

Suddenly Ka-san is leaving the hut and grabs all three of her children around the shoulders holding them. "Your cousin is dead." She covers her mouth and her eyes. "You can't be here. You could get sick. Katsumoto!" she calls for their guard. "Where is he?"

"I put something in his drink to make him sleep," Yuki says sheepishly, waiting to get in trouble, again.

"Hisato." Rin wipes her nose. He's off in the distance, eyes on them, but nowhere near the ill.

He raises a hand as he approaches the children.

"What happened to Tatsuo, Ka-san?" Taiyomaru asks, his words muffled by the cloth covering his face.

"He was too sick." Rin wipes her nose.

"Why do your hands smell like sake?" Harutoga lifts Ka-san's palms to his nose and inhales. "No, that smells stronger than sake."

"It's shochi." The mother coughs, choking back her tears. "If you touch someone who is sick, you need to wash your hands with something strong enough to destroy the germs. Listen to me, you cannot be here. You'll get sick. You could die."

"Where's Chichiue?" Yuki asks her mother. She hasn't been able to smell him, she knows that he's not there and it makes her feel sick with worry.

"I don't know," her mother answers as she hugs her children. "You need to go back to the house now. Hisato!" Ka-san calls her guard again.

He approaches them, keeping his distance from the hut and the ill. "Come children."

They follow much more subdued than they were before. She holds her brothers hands, nervous that they will meet the same fate. "I want Soba-sama," she tells Hisato. Soba-sama knows everything, she can fix this. She can make it better.

"She couldn't save Ojisan," Harutoga reminds her, the words biting at her body.

Hisato closes his eyes and rests his hand over his heart, then his face wrinkles into what Yuki has learned is concern. "Go back to the house," Hisato tells them.

"Where are you going?" Taiyomaru pivots to ask but Hisato has already left. All that is left is the wind that carried him.

"We should go home," Yuki wipes her eyes and takes her little brothers by their hands. Life would be so much easier if the adults around them explained what was going on, instead of leaving them in the dark.

**Kagome-past**

She is numb…she has half a mind to find Sesshomaru and kill him now. He must have known that her first and only grandchild would succumb, that her husband would die. Is Sayako going to meet her end? What about her children? He never said if Sota and Taisho would get sick. Sota has been around it for months now and is not symptomatic. But Sayako, the once muscle-bound she demon has withered. She is thin now, with ribs that slightly protrude. She can only swallow light broths and very soft meat. She heaved for the first time right after Tatsuo stopped breathing. It started with food and ended in a slow trickle of blood. Now, her eyes are puffy from sorrow, and she hasn't stopped wailing for hours.

 _I spent a few rotations in gastro,_ she tells herself firmly, but who can separate the grandmother within from the remains of the dead child on the floor. She joins her son and Sayako in mourning, tears bleed from her eyes, a lump forms in her throat. She sobs hysterically with them, rather than do what she knew she needs to. It hurts too much. She knows she will have to burn the tiny body. All the bodies will have to be burned and the clothes she wore while she cared for Tatsuo. Or they would have to be sterilized in some way but she has no idea how to accomplish that in this environment. How was she going to keep it from spreading? How could she tell if it was airborne?

She shakes her head as she holds the blistered hand that fits in her palm. He was such a beautiful boy with long, thick black hair. Sayako and Sota wrapped furs around his head like Koga and tied a small braid down the side of his head for his lineage. He liked running through the fields and chasing the other wolf-children in their pack. He was light itself and now his eyes are absent and body limp. She needs to do something, anything.

As she glanced outside the hut, she sees Rin leaning against the doorframe wiping her own tired eyes. Kagome rises from her mourning family and joins her sister-in-law. Rin hugs her and says, "I'm sorry."

"So am I." Rin holds her around the waist and strokes her hair. "This is what he warned me about. He'll find the cure Kagome."

She snorts, "How many more will die until he does?"

"I don't know," she gazes in the direction of her house.

"Your children will be fine," Kagome encourages her quietly. "Mine," she covers her eyes. "I miss my girls." She falls to her knees. "I shouldn't have kissed him. I'm so lonely."

Rin cushions her fall and they both land on the grass. "What do we do? To minimize it? Summer is coming soon. Inuyasha was sicker during the summers right?"

"Sesshomaru left to find Touma's halberd. At least I think he did." She wipes her eyes. "We need to limit who is around the ill. Bodies have to be burned. We can't make big funerals, just dig a giant pit and burn them. Or melted if Sesshomaru were here. Even Tatsuo," she covers her eyes. "We have to, to stop anyone else from getting sick. We should set up a shack to change our clothes in and to shower in and use shochi to sterilize. We need more help…it's going to spread. Everyone is going to get sick." They have gathered a large community of misfits in this village. So many live there now, so many children that will be lost. "We're going to lose so many."

"He'll find a cure," Rin says so surely that Kagome almost believes her. "He left? He just came back. He didn't say anything."

"He had to," Kagome stands up. "You need to call a meeting before it spreads and it gets worse and we need more help."

"From who?"

"Jinenji and I think Sango and Miroku should move here. How long before the monks come? If everyone gets sick, how will you keep the barrier up?"

"They can't find us," Rin reminds her. "It's made from reiki."

"We need to be careful. We should find Kohaku too."

"Sesshomaru might kill him," she touches her heart. She wishes he was here. "He looks so small."

"I'll go," Kagome says firmly, wiping the last drops of tears.

"No," Rin shakes her head, "no. I'm the better warrior between us and I can take Hisato with me."

"If they sense the yoki from your bond? It's so strong even I can sense it." The plan is madness.

"No," she repeats herself. "We'll start by calling a meeting."

"No," Kagome grabs her hands, "we start by bathing in a mixture of shochi and water and changing our clothes into clean ones. It's the best we can do for now."

There are things she notices about Rin's body as the two wash behind the hut where none can see them. The younger woman has more defined abs and is skinnier than her. Kagome had taken care of her form, but not like Rin. She could fight easily against marauders, Inuyasha had taught her that, but it's been years since Kagome actively sparred against anyone. For a time, Sango used to work with her, but even Sango had begun to slow down. It's almost as if age has not touched Rin in the last ten years. She's thirty four to Kagome's forty-one years and the signs are extremely obvious. Rin's hair is still completely black with no signs of aging. She still looks like a woman in her twenties. Kagome already knows, _she was with me for one hundred and fifty years after I bonded her._ She will be with him for another hundred and twenty years. It makes the Miko jealous. She only had twenty years with the man she loved. Why did it have to end like this?


	57. Sesshomaru-Past/Natsuki-past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru's search for Touma's halberd leads to a messy end. Natsuki leaves the castle to help him.

**Sesshomaru-Past**

He soars high in the sky, the wind and the rain his companion. As he approaches the south, he takes a rag and covers his face, obscuring his visage and ensuring that if the disease ravaging his kind is airborne, he won't fall ill with it. He will have to wash his shoes, his clothes and his body to avoid it seeping into his skin. He lands in the area where Rin had lived years before when he had bonded Natsuki. The ramshackle hut had been dismantled years ago when she returned to live with him again. He stalks through the forest, smelling the rotten stench of death.

This close to the ocean, the air is constantly moist, leaving a sheen of sweat on the trees. It mars his senses as he walks serenely over the logs that used to make Yuki trip and fall when she brought water from the river. For a mere second he wonders how many have been affected from drinking from the river water. He'll have to find a clean source of water because he didn't bring a bottle to drink out of or a pot to boil it. Things he's never had to think of before. From Kagome, years before he learned about sterilizing water to protect Rin. She told him it was to get rid of diseases in the water.

He kneels down and lifts dirt up to his nose. It's even harder to find what he is looking for through the scents of the brush. For a moment, he wishes he would have brought Katsumoto with him, or one of the children.

He had flown passed the place that Sota had called home. All that was left were bodies and more bodies. Villagers milled in the area, fearless of the illness filching the remaining valuables that the wolves had held near.

A twig snaps to his right, the first sign that he is not alone. He curses the mask on his face, obscuring his scent. Arrows come from the right. He shatters them with his whip. A net from above falls and is hacked with his claws. He spins around to grasp a slayer by the throat. The man throws black beads in his face, covering him in dark brown clouds that do nothing more than temporarily obscure his vision. Another comes from behind, he dispatches with a kick to the stomach. He tosses the one in his hand and whirls onto a third but as soon as this one is in his grasp he sets the man down. "Kohaku."

"Sesshomaru-sama…" the man falls to his knees. His hair is much the same as it was when he was a boy, only longer. "Cease attacking! This Mononoke is a friend!"

From the trees and the surrounding brush, five men and three teenage boys approach him. He scoffs at the men who as if he is a rabid wolf. "What are you doing here?"

"Some of the yokai have turned vengeful." He keeps his eyes low so as not to incur Sesshomaru's wrath. "We've been battling a horde of bears that keep attacking the village that is under your protection. The ogres are sick. The mikos and the monks in the area have been purifying them. The Dai-yokai in the cave near the mountains is wrathful. We were hired to obliterate him. Sesshomaru-sama I need your help."

"You will be in my debt," there is too much fighting. This is not the time for petty battles that end valuable lives. But he needs allies among the humans and will take them where he can get them. He has saved Kohaku one too many times for the man in front of him to betray him. "I'm looking for a halberd. It has a moon shaped hilt, a cyclone on the blade."

"We'll find it," Kohaku says firmly.

Sesshomaru soars into the air and removes the damned rag from his face so he can breathe freely. The air is thick but he knows the mountains that Kohaku speaks of.

High above the cliff where Rin had made her home is the home of bear demons. He makes his way up, sniffing the air carefully. Sickness could be anywhere. Landing paces from the entrance of the cave, he is met by a bear in humanoid form. He had once told Rin that she should be grateful that she never met one in this form, because like this, they are strong beyond measure, not as fast as inu-youkai but deadly. He'll be lucky to survive this encounter. "What do you want, Dog Lord?"

"The village you attack is under my protection." He proactively removes Bakusaiga from his waist, brandishing it low. Peace would be preferable, but even he knows it may not happen.

The demon before him wears a thick bearskin. Over his face and covering his long black hair, is a bear's head. He holds his own curved-tipped katana, with fur around the bone-white hilt. "You would side with the humans?"

"I side with no one."

"Then you haven't heard the rumors."

He paces closer, carefully laying his steps. If this turns into a battle of brawn the bear will transform in front of him and be nearly twice as big as he is. "Rumors are a waste of time."

"A monk came through these lands three months ago, disguised as a peddler. He sold sweet rice to many of the families. Many of our kind have perished. From there, this illness has spread to the ogres, to the osprey, to the eagles. We are being eradicated."

"The village has done you no harm."

"You are getting soft." The bear's katana lights white.

"And you are becoming stupid." Bakusaiga glows green.

"You know the problem with humans?" The bear demon laughs, "you never know which ones will be born with holy powers. Better to kill them all. If you aren't careful, that will include the human you took as your lover."

There are buttons not to be pushed and this is one of them. Keeping her safe is a never ending battle. Blood will be spilled again for her and it will be worth it. He lunges at the bear-demon, done with talking. He is just as quick as Sesshomaru. Their blades clash in white and green lights. They hack into each other's skin but Bakusaiga can't break through the bear's fur.

Sesshomaru lunges at the stomach and is blocked, then at the neck. The bear demon ducks, making Sesshomaru miss. He strikes at the shoulder, the demon parries. He can't afford this battle. Tatsuo is sick and in that moment, grief hits the back of his awareness so strong and so overwhelming he knows that he has lost his nephew.

The distraction is all the bear demon needed. He thrusts his long sword into Sesshomaru's gut, twisting it to prevent it from healing quickly. Sesshomaru groans in pain, blood spurts from his mouth. "Weak," he laughs at the dog-demon as he twists it for good measure, sending blood spilling from Sesshomaru's middle in waves and then slices up his chest hitting the lower lobe of his lung.

Sesshomaru wants to collapse. He wants to stop breathing. His chest aches and burns, making him wheeze as he breathes. But instead, he forces his arms back up, simultaneously stabbing the bear demon through the back of its chest and into his own, nearly piercing his heart in the process. "Vermin," he growls through clenched teeth, shoving the body off him and collapsing, falling through the air. He grips the neck of the bear demon as they both lose their footing, sliding and smashing into the sides of the cliffs. If one of them doesn't start flying soon, they'll both be dead.

"And we'll die together!" the bear demon laughs as they fall into a dark abyss.

**Natsuki-past**

She can hear them arguing from her room. She bounces her son on her hip to calm him. Even Tsukimaru can sense the unrest of the those around them. He hasn't been quiet since Sesshomaru stopped visiting and has only come a handful of times in the last year, forsaking his claim to Tsukimaru and Natsuki for the sake of protecting his family below.

Something has been distracting him as of late. She sets Tsukimaru down despite his screams and leaves her room following the arguing to Gobodo-sama's room. She plays a dangerous game. The woman is always steps ahead of Natsuki, a dangerous tyrant. She knows better than to step out of line, but it seems there is someone who can stand up to her.

"You can't keep her here!" Hisato's voice booms down the hallways shaking the foundation of the home.

"Where should I send her?" Gobodo-sama yells at him just as loud. "There is nowhere that she would be safe! They cannot reach us in the skies."

"And how long will it be until they find a yokai to be their slave to fly them here? First purifications now this?" He grabs her by the shoulders. "Listen to reason, listen to me. I have lived by your side for centuries and seen you stand with your head high despite the pain you have experienced in this life. You cannot keep her here. It's too dangerous. Take her and leave."

"Again, where? The disease is spreading everywhere. It's already decimated the West, it's in the South. There are rumors of it spreading in the East and how long until it reaches the north? Where would we go that would keep us from falling victim to it?"

"Anywhere dear one." He cups her chin and kisses her mouth. "Anywhere. My heart is full wherever you are."

"You sentimental fool." Gobodo-sama nips at his fingers.

"I am your fool," he says quietly. "We must leave."

Natsuki wonders if they are talking about her. Is Sesshomaru worried about her? Worried about their son? Is it through fear that he sends his messenger? She yearns to feel the bond that she has spent so long ignoring, the thing that keeps their souls twined together. He feels like a flame, a constant in the back of her mind, but sinful to touch, to make contact with. She yearns for him even now, but she must wait, bide her time until the day comes. Until Rin dies.

"There is nowhere safer for her to be than by my side. They won't find us here. It won't make its way here." Gobodo-sama's mouth opens against Hisato's and suddenly Natsuki is blushing. The passion between the two is greater than anything she has ever seen before. They hold each other tightly, arms circling waists, fingers running through long hair until he tips the demoness over the side of the bed and eases himself between her legs.

Now she knows she's overstayed. She turns and touches her heart lightly. Just once, for one moment she wants to feel him. But it's not him she feels, it's darkness, it's pain. He can't breathe, his life-force is leaving him. "Oh no," she covers her mouth and runs back to her room. She quickly ties her son to her back with a silk turquoise sash and runs out of the room flying for her lover. She knows he will never love her, because she is not Rin, but there are some things she can do that his human lover can't, if she can only get to him in time.

"You interrupted Natsuki." Hisato flies next to her so suddenly she almost loses her balance. "Why are you taking the baby down there."

"He's hurt," she doubles her speed in an attempt to leave the demon behind. "Badly. He can't breathe."

"He doesn't need you," Hisato warns her, reaching to grab the child from her back.

She twists dodging the hand. "I could kill you." She speeds her coming. "He's can't move." Her eyes bleed red. "He's dying." It burns, her chest is on fire. He's trapped and his legs aren't moving. She doesn't know what it is that has him so furious, but she can feel it as if it's her own. Blood leaks from his chest, he struggles to stay awake and now his legs aren't working. She promised to keep her distance, but they never spoke if his life was in danger.

She finds him panting with a large boulder crushing his legs. It's twice as tall as she is and much wider. Immortality does not equate invincibility. "Sesshomaru!" she screams covering her mouth. He's in a small canyon at the bottom of a ravine. Even she can feel that he is in so much pain he can't speak. His eyes open lazily. He lies in a puddle of his own blood. His white haori is dripping and his mouth is lolling. "Hisato help me get this off!"

The two demons lean over and lift the rock off Sesshomaru's legs. He grunts in pain as the stones are removed, revealing bones that stick out from the skin. Natsuki leans over him and embraces his lips with her own and slides his hand against her breast. He doesn't fight her, knowing exactly why she is engaging in such an intimate act. "Hang on," she presses her hands against his chest calling on her yoki to both soothe and heal. She groans at the power it takes to close the wounds in his legs and chest.

He coughs catching his breath and pushes her off him. He forces himself off the muddied ground and wipes the blood from his chest, sniffing the air.

Natsuki sniffs too, trying to find out why he is here and how he ended up at the bottom of a ravine. She can smell it too. "He's not dead yet."

"Leave," he removes his katana and follows the scent. "Hisato," he calls his servant.

The obedient demon follows.

She follows behind him, refusing to leave his side. The injuries may be closed but he is still not at his strongest. She has been weakened but she will do more good than Hisato and will prove it.

As they trek through the dark, they find the bear demon bleeding out through his chest with blood dripping down the corner of his mouth. "You kill your own kind for humans."

"I have always killed my own kind," Sesshomaru states coldly as he swipes his sword through the neck, sending a gush of blood, splattering the rocks. "Leave Natsuki, Hisato go home."

Then he is gone again and she holds her heart.

"You have to stop approaching him. It's going to keep building and neither one of you will be able to resist it."

"Times have changed Hisato," she says just as cold as her lover. "What are we supposed to do? I won't let him die over lowly humans. If she loved him, she would do the same thing, regardless of where it came from."

"You're playing with fire."

"We all are," she says as she leaves, returning to the castle that has become her home.


	58. Sesshomaru-present/Sesshomaru-past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshomaru dreams of Rin in the present. In the past he heals from his wounds and returns home.

**Sesshomaru-Present**

The world is white and smells clean, like nothing exists. The air hazy as if he is alone on the stretcher with nothing around him. Heat fills his lungs. The first breath in is the sweet smell of morning dew that he was once so used to inhaling. He swings his legs over the side of the bed, forcing his eyes open. Then he sees her striding for him, a goddess dressed in a lavender kimono with a light yellow obi, hair down and flowing around her shoulders. Once, she started wearing it up more often and he sliced through so many of the ties for her hair, she finally understood that he wanted it down, to bury his nose into, to comb his claws through, to grip when they made love so he could tilt her head back and nip at her neck. A bland sigh escapes his lips as she approaches him.

"I'm dreaming." He blinks trying to will the vision of her away. A cruel torment, knowing that at any moment he will wake without her in his arms.

"Is it such a bad dream?" She pulls his face down to her own and their lips meet, a fire of passion as he grabs for her waist, greedy to remove the clothes that are barring them. Their tongues dance together in a familiar symphony. He clenches down enough to make her moan, "my love." She grips his shoulders, breaking the kiss.

"My heart." He rests his forehead against hers as he once did and laces her lips with his own again, holding her by the back of the neck. "You didn't wait for me." He breaths heavily, huskily, unable to think of anything more than her next to him.

"You were taking too long," she laughs, facing away from him and pulling her long black hair over shoulder, baring a pale white neck to his fangs.

His lips come down on her shoulder, tasting the dew of her skin that is quickly changing to the heated summer mornings, a sign that she is desperate for his touch. He scrapes his fangs against her skin. "I am trying to save our children." For them he stayed, for them he did not fall on his katana as he wished to.

"And what about you?" She turns again, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He doesn't fill the space he used to. Her hand travels up to his cheek and thumbs the wrinkled skin beneath his eyes, signs of aging, pain and the stress he has endured curing others of ailments. "The years have not been kind to you."

"Because you left me," he whispers in her ears. "Because I need you."

"And so you let me go so easily? I was sitting in a bed across from you."

"You are a wicked woman Rin." His lips encapsulate hers, digging, grinding, until their teeth clash together. "Taunting me in my dreams. This is a dream. Why torment me?"

"Are you sure you're dreaming? The scar is returning." She pushes aside the garment from his chest, revealing the root-like scar, the symbol of his bond to Rin. "Even this knows that I am there. I'm waiting for you my love."

"That girl is not you, my heart," the next kiss is bitter. "She isn't you."

"We can be together again," her voice breaks next to his.

"Is there a reason you decided to come back in a body that was deaf and blind?" He sits down, even in dreams his legs are sore and tired and he fears them breaking into tremors he can't stop. He pulls his lover down with him, licking the nape of her neck, tasting the skin he misses so much.

"I'm not sure I had much of a choice. My time to come back into this world came," she turns her head to meet his lips and cups his chin, a taste that he misses. "She wasn't always blind. I think you figured that out now. She was born to poor farmers and was trapped in a house during a fire one night. The burns took her sight when she was two. The only thing she remembers seeing is you, my love."

"You trick her," he kisses the palm of her hand, "and toy with my heart."

"Well, I do owe you for those five years you abandoned me."

"You chose abandonment."

"I did not," she yanks on his hair for effect. "You ached and wouldn't share it with me."

"I couldn't," he corrects her. "And you wouldn't share."

"You lied to me," she mutters against his lips. "You said she never approached us again."

"She didn't." He can't help his lips from falling on hers. He slides a hand inside the hem of her kimono and massages her supple nipple between his clawed fingers. She moans and leans into his touch. "Must we talk? There are other thigs I would rather do before I wake up to a body that can't move."

"You're giving up my love."

"My heart," he inhales the dip of her neck. "There's nothing left for me in life. I've done what I could."

"You're so close Sesshomaru, don't give up."

"What do I gain by staying?"

"I'm there, waiting for you."

He shakes his head in disbelief.

"Do you honestly see yourself as so unlovable?" She nips at his bottom lip until he returns the pressure. "I don't regret loving you."

"She doesn't know me."

"She knows what I want her to."

"And when she learns the truth? The monster I am inside? No," he says so firmly as goosebumps rise on his skin.

"You're scared my love." She falls on top of him, rolling to the side, taking in his mouth, sucking on his tongue.

"I am afraid of nothing."

"Except for what lies in here." She touches his chest, an orange ring flames around her fingers, the mark that once bound them together.

He slides the garment off her shoulder, revealing the slightly tanned skin that he used to move against. For fear that the real world will call him, someone will wake him from this dream, he removes the rest of her clothing and then struggles against his own. His fingers aren't as limber as they once were, so his lover reaches up and unbuttons the white shirt he is wearing. "Your body has changed." She runs her tongue up his stomach making him snarl in pleasure. His muscles aren't what they once were, neither is his appetite, leaving his body a shell.

"I was weakened," he grasps a handful of hair, tugging her chin back and trailing wet, open mouth kisses down her neck, while nestling himself between her legs. "This is a dream," he says as he slides himself in. She's so hot and burning for him he nearly comes with the first thrust. "Oh my heart," he croons next to her ears, "why didn't you wait for me?"

"Why did you let me go?"

"She is not you," he thrusts again, gripping her shoulders. It's a dream and he will wake empty. An ache grows in his back. He's desperate to go deeper, to push himself further inside of her but can't. The dream is fading. "No," he bangs a fist against the floor. "Don't go. Rin, please?"

"You're so close my love," her voice and body fade against the blowing wind. "Don't give up. I'm waiting for you."

He wakes up rubbing his chest, panting. The blinds have been darkened and he is alone. He takes the water cup that was left next to him and quenches his parched throat. In anger, the cup is thrown across the room, splashing the wall with water.

Before she left, Nina asked him if they would ever meet again and if he was real. He told her the fever makes patients hallucinate and that all he was, was a doctor who wanted her to be well and live a good life. She hugged his neck thanking him for her sight and he couldn't resist running his lips along her forehead in a final good-bye kiss. She tasted exactly like Rin. He would not subject her to a life by his side again, especially when he didn't know how much life he had left to live. He presses the call button on the bed too tired and weak to get up.

Haruto comes in with a grim look on his face. He sits in the swivel chair by Sesshomaru's bed-side. Izayoi follows behind him, sleep still in her eyes, "how are you Ojisama?"

"We need to bring Katsumoto here," he lifts himself off the bed. "Izayoi, where is Mayumi?"

"Harutoga took her back to his house," she say and sits next to him. "Are you hungry?"

He shakes his head, "I'll be fine. We proceed with the transplant Haruto."

"Do you know someone to match you?"

"I have an idea. Izayoi call Sato," he says. "And quickly, there won't be much time."

"What about the chemo? How much will we need to suppress your immune system?"

Sesshomaru laughs, "that will be an experiment. Of course, if you use too much I'll die, and not enough, my body will reject the donor tissue. Oh don't look so shocked Haruto. I'm dying anyway, you'll either save my life or speed my journey."

**Sesshomaru-past**

He collapses shortly after Natsuki leaves but not without the feeling of wanting to follow her. He pulls himself next to a tree so he has something to lean against and fluffs his mokomoko out behind him. He sighs into his fur, closing his eyes long enough to realize that he is surrounded and despite the healing wounds in his chest, he is not looking forward to this battle. They surround him, twenty strong, with sickles, swords and bows and arrows. He rolls his eyes, knowing what is coming and considers transforming. It would be much easier to destroy them this way, until a familiar voice rings in his ear, "Sesshomaru-sama!"

When his eyes open lazily again, the slayers are on their knees, with heads bowed to him. Kohaku approaches with the Halberd in his hand, dragging it behind his back because of the sheer weight of it. "It was hard to find it. I recognize Kagome-sama's spiritual energy against the blade. It's been quieted. It was found next to a skeleton." He flops it off his back and onto the ground next to Sesshomaru. "Are you injured?"

Sesshomaru only snorts in return, gripping the katana. He can feel the Miko's seal against it the moment his hand touches the hilt. He just needs a few days to heal and he will break the seal. With this he will be able to chill his village and slow the spread of the disease, time. That is what he tells himself, he needs time to find a cure, to save what is being destroyed.

"I'm sorry about what's happening." Kohaku sits down next to him. "We heard rumors. I had to give Kirara back to my sister to protect her. We were ambushed by Monks and Mikos last month. They tried to take our weapons and attacked Kirara with some powder."

Sesshomaru's eyes widen in shock. "Is she ill?"

Kohaku nods his head. Kohaku is no longer a boy or a young man. He is three seasons Rin's senior but then Sesshomaru wonders why he has never seen silver in Rin's hair. Her black tresses fall down her back as freely as ever. They haven't withered from age, or changed in color. "Shippo fell ill shortly after. He was visiting Sango and then he spiked a fever. He's been able to travel but," Kohaku suddenly covers his mouth.

"It's contagious," Sesshomaru says wincing as he sits up. "You are in the debt of this Sesshomaru." Suddenly his speech is more formal but he sees hope in the humans who kneel in front of him.

"You want a favor."

Kohaku is quick witted and the dog-demon appreciates it. "You remember where my home is?"

"I do," he cracks a melon on his knee and begins to eat. "Would you like some?"

"No. You will find sick demons and bring them to my home. Send to your sister. It moves faster with heat. Summer is coming. Shippo and Kirara will survive longer in my home. Is the hanyou sick?"

"Jinenji-san? Not yet. He uses shochi to wash his hands like he saw the Miko do when she worked with very sick patients and keeps his mouth covered. For now he's healthy but it can't last. We've run across entire demon villages decimated. The ogres are gone. They've retreated to their mountains and the wolves that had recently moved into this area left months ago. We'll do it though."

"Kohaku-sama!" One of the slayers protests. "This is a Mononoke!"

"A Mononoke who saved my life countless times, my sister, Kagome-sama. He protected me as a child. We will serve him. We are in his debt for killing the bear demon. We camp here tonight."

Kohaku's gesture doesn't escape Sesshomaru. He is weakened and if he encountered another fight, particularly with monks or priestesses he lacked the strength to fight back. He closes his eyes, intent on resting for several hours before he returns to chill his lands in an eternal winter.


	59. Yuki-Past/Rin-Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuki's fear becomes palpable as she struggles to understand what's going on. Rin and Sesshomaru reunite. His fear becomes her pain.

**Yuki-past**

Something scary is happening in the village and no one is telling her what. It's like the adults are all running around like crazed animals.

So Yuki sits with her brothers in her room. For a time her parents considered making Taiyomaru his own room, but Harutoga's was dust filled and used for storage. They all sleep on her futon wrapped in purple or pink sheets. It's been like that since Harutoga was weaned and Yuki was almost six. The same happened when Taiyomaru was weaned.

Now her bed is occupied by Shiori who fell asleep without eating dinner. Her eyes are puckered and red and her cheeks are swollen. It breaks Yuki's heart to see her friend in pain.

She stands up and goes to the door. "I'm going back to the village."

"We aren't allowed to go!" Harutoga gets off her lavender sheets and takes her by the hand. "Can't you listen for once?"

"Tatsuo is dead." She wipes her eyes and approaches the door taking quiet steps. "Shut up, stupid dog will hear us."

"Us? I'm not going with you." Harutoga sits back down and glares at his sister. "Chichiue and Ka-san said we couldn't go anymore because we could get sick! Why can't you listen for once?"

"If you go, I'm telling Katsumoto." Taiyomaru folds his arms over on himself. She wants to tell him that he looks like a ferret with too much fur and pointy nose better fitted for a witch, but now doesn't seem like th time.

"Since when can you fly?" Yuki turns on her brother with a fury. "We can't fly. You're a hanyou, why can you fly?"

"I don't know. I just wanted to. Don't go Yuki, please?"

"You two are idiots," she snarls and hisses at them in warning. She's in charge and she'll make sure they accept it.

"You're going to get us in trouble…again," Taiyomaru reminds her. The last time was when she decided to get into the melon patch without permission. They had snuck off in the middle of the night only to be caught by their father. They all three got it, including a sound spanking for running off. Harutoga was sore for a few days, Taiyomaru for longer than that and Yuki couldn't sit for a week. _I am sick of you defying me,_ he had roared at Yuki.

She only sticks her raspberry red tongue out at them as she exits the room. Ka-san called a meeting for that night with the village and she wants to go. Chichiue's gone and no one has any idea where.

Yuki will find out what is happening if it is the last thing that she does. She's already a teenager, and if she had been human, she would probably be getting propositioned for marriage by now. She doesn't bother opening the door to the garden but rather slides open the window and starts removing the blinds so they don't rustle while she makes her way through. After the last one is loose, she gives her idiot brothers the dirtiest face she can manage and leaps out the window. It's pitch black outside, hours past the time they should have been sleeping.

Her Uncle didn't need as much sleep, but he said while his body was still childlike he slept for half the day. She curses the fact that she is already feeling the effects of the exhaustion. It doesn't take long for clumsy footfalls to fall in line behind her. The smell of the forest from Harutoga and snow from Taiyomaru means she doesn't need to look behind her. They make their way around the hot springs and as soon as they are past it and into the daisies, they run as quickly as they can for the village. It's easy to keep their footfalls quiet in the field of daisies that separates the house from the village. The boys catch up and then they are holding hands with Yuki in the middle, breathing in the humid air as they lope onward. "This-" she is about to direct them, only to run into two very sturdy legs that smack into her face and send her flying backwards, knocking into both brothers before she lands on the ground. They land in a pile, Harutoga on the bottom, Taiyomaru in the middle with Yuki on top. She can smell him. Katsumoto, her worst nightmare. He stinks of pine cones and sap and sometimes sake. "Stupid dog," she hisses trying to stand only for him to put his foot down, literally squarely onto her chest forcing her back down.

"You were told to stay home and that the village was off limits."

Yes she was, but she has no intention of following those directions and her brothers are useless statues underneath her, doing nothing. "Idiots."

"Shall I tell your father you defied him? His temper has been foul lately." He wiggles his toes on her chest for emphasis. "Why did you try to come here?"

"I want to hear what Obasan and Ka-san have to say," she says confidently. She's tired of hiding from this illness that is now so close to home that it robbed her of one of her cousins.

He shakes his head, removing his foot, allowing them to stand. "Return home."

"No." She folds her arm and puffs out her chest. Intimidation doesn't work on Katsumoto. She'll have to find some other means of getting him to listen to her. "What about my cousins? What if Taisho and Sota get sick? Chichiue? You?" She's going to kill herself for what she is about to do. She's seen her mother do it to get her father to yield. She bats her eyelashes and lets tears form in the corners of her eyes. She once asked her mother why her father hated seeing her cry so much. Ka-san said it was because he never knew what to do when he saw it. Most of the time her tears were genuine but if she needed him to budge on something, all she had to do was cry and he would yield. "I don't want to die." She wipes her crocodile tears off her cheeks and lets her shoulders shake.

"Yuki?" Taiyomaru pets her shoulder. Even he believes the tears are real.

"Please Katsumoto?" Harutoga joins the begging.

Katsumoto groans and then backs away. His eyes turn red, his face elongates, his arms become black with fur as he leaps into the air and then is a giant black dog. He motions them forward with his nose and she scrambles onto his back. Her brothers follow and then Katsumoto flies with them until they are hovering over the village where the throngs of scared villagers are listening to her aunt.

Kagome stands like a pillar, raised onto a wooden platform that used to be the base of a large tree. The pyres are lit to give light. "We need to separate who is sick and who isn't. The river water is probably already contaminated so don't drink from it. We're going to only take drinking water from the lake from now on and boil it before you drink it. But you can't wash clothes in it anymore and anyone who is sick shouldn't be near it. We need to make sure that everyone is using the outhouses, even the children. And those of you that can dispose of it poison or fire should often so the germs don't build up. Even the yokai. This is how it works for humans. I don't know…" her voice finally breaks. Standing next to her is Sota and Taisho. They hold her shoulders, "I don't know…if it's the same or not. I'm not familiar with this disease."

"Why boil it?" Taiyomaru asks his sister as he sits next to her on the great dog's back.

"I don't know. What does contaminated mean?" Yuki asks Katsumoto.

"It means that it's no longer safe to drink," and that voice makes Yuki shiver. "Boiling water rids it of diseases that will make you sick. Why are you here? I told you to stay at the house!"

He's scary these days and she doesn't like how his voice raises or how angry he looks. "I want to understand what's happening. Tatsuo is dead!" she screams at her father and immediately regrets it. He didn't know and his face falls, his mouth twitches in a way that scares her. He's holding a giant katana in his hand with a moon-shaped back and a twister on the front.

"He's dead?" She's never heard her father sound like this before.

Harutoga and Taiyomaru both nod behind her. Yuki stands up and notices a shift in Katsumoto. Almost like he is telling her it will be okay through the temperature of his fur against her feet. "No one is telling us anything."

His eyes close and she isn't sure what color they will be when they open. His yoki is rising, his fists shake and she wants to run but they are so high up in the air, he would catch her before she hits the ground and if he didn't, she probably wouldn't survive. "Take them home," he says so coldly it makes her shiver as he turns his back on them and flies away.

"We need to grow the ingredients for Shochi. We've sent for the fox demons. Anyone who is contact with the sick needs to cover their face and sanitize themselves afterwards," Ka-san says as Katsumoto flies them back to their home. She shivers and rubs her shoulders thinking it's the fear that is doing it to her. Until she sees that Harutoga and Taiyomaru have melded themselves together and their lips are blue. She blows out a puff of air, seeing her breath. "It's cold?" She curls in on herself, snuggling into Katusmoto's fur, afraid of what is to come. Will she die like her cousin an her uncle? Why is this happening to them?

**Rin-Past**

She stands like a sentinel, eyes ablaze, holding in the sorrow of losing Tatsuo. He told her that a disease would come, their children will get sick and so will he. _Why didn't you tell me the cure, my love? What were you trying to protect?_ As she listens to the rest of the instructions she pulls Nobuatsu aside to speak to him about their herbs. They whisper quietly about what they have and what they don't have and what they need to keep people alive. "When you were treating Inuyasha what did you give him."

"Lavender, Eucalyptus, thousand year berries. I have a small store of their seeds but," he raises his hand into the air, then blew out cold air. "Winter?"

Against her will, she shivers as the temperature rapidly drops. The humans in the crowd huddle closely to their children and the fires just as a tornado of power lands in front of Kagome.

Rin would breathe a sigh of relief, if he didn't look so angry. All eyes track to Sesshomaru, their leader, the one who has given them sanctuary. She knows the halberd he holds in his hand and even seeing it unearths memories that make her stagger and want to flee. She covers her eyes and is about to make a break for it when she feels a firm hand on her elbow. Thinking it is Nobuatsu she turns only to find soft-honey, colored eyes and magenta stripes on the hand that holds her. With the other hand he stabs the halberd into the wooden platform in the middle of the field and says loudly, "until a cure is found. The village will remain in an eternal winter. The barrier will be lifted daily to allow the sick to enter. Only humans will care for the sick. Any who are caught disregarding the quarantine will be killed. This Sesshomaru, will show no mercy. There is no time for mercy, only life."

Then he flies Rin into a hut, disorienting her. There are barrels of shochi and buckets of water in the dimly lit hut. She picks up a flintstone and smacks it against the hearth in the center, only making sparks. Her fingers shiver in the dark. "I'm going to get Nintojo."

"Rin," he says gently while grasping her elbow.

"I know," she says quietly. She needs to clean him and she needs his help before they return to their children. "Tatsuo is dead." She turns and crashes into his chest.

He embraces her and whispers next to her ear, "I know."

Moments pass as they mourn the loss of their nephew. The wedding had been extravagant and left her exhausted. She spent the days before setting flower arrangements. The staff made fancy plates of rice, vegetables and brought in the meats of wild-animals for the demon guests, not that there were many humans besides Sango, Miroku and their children, grand-children and families. Kagome had spoken over and over again how her mother was filled with sorrow to miss the wedding, but she brought strange devices she taught Shippo and several other fox-demons to use. Things called, cameras. Some made moving pictures and others pictures of Rin and Sesshomaru and their children. It was a joyous and happy occasion filled with dancing and drinking. Even drunk Sesshomaru was stoic until they ended up in their bedroom together and he sloppily pulled her clothes off and made the most sensuous and humorous love to her.

She pulls back and kisses his lips. "It's okay, my love." His forehead rests against hers.

"It's not," he breaths heavily.

She presses her palm against his chest. "It will be. You'll find the cure, I have faith in you."

"Your faith is misplaced." He removes her hand as he speaks. "Go find Nintojo. Is Jaken ill?"

"Yes." She wipes a tear from her eyes and says again, more firmly than before, "I believe in you, even if you don't believe in yourself right now."

She leaves the hut to find a small line of people waiting. Their clothes will have to be washed and even that she didn't think about before she left for the day. In the future, extra sets of clothing will have to be left in the hut, _of course that would make it easier to identify who should be there and who shouldn't be. I'll bring the maid uniforms from home._ "Sesshomaru-sama will be cleansed first," she says loudly. She hates her official voice, but it is what it is. They are a Lord and Lady of their home. "You will all have to wait."

She stops by Akari who is among the throngs of people instead of at the house where she should be. "You shouldn't be here. You could get sick."

Akari exhales heavily. "If I didn't listen to what they said I probably would be. Can I move my family to the manor? None of us are showing signs of illness."

"She has a point Obasan," Taisho follows. "Whoever isn't sick, in my Ka-san's time, they go to places called, hospitals. Even if we keep people in two separate camps, the air, the ground, anything. We don't know who will get sick, the least we can do is move those that aren't sick and put them in the field in front of the public entrance."

She mulls over the idea, staring at her terrified villagers. "Do it Taisho, Akari, after you've sterilized yourselves. But take nothing with you that you don't need. We'll house everyone tonight in the public dining-hall. Tomorrow you'll cut fresh wood for the new homes and Akari," she grabs her hand, "stay away from the sick, please? I don't want to lose you."

"All will be as it should, Rin-sama," she says firmly and continues waiting.

She runs across the field into the den of the sick. The imps stink of like the fevers that are plaguing them. The ones that are the worst smell of blood and excrement. She covers her mouth and calls, "Jaken! Jaken!"

"Over here!"

It comes from inside one of the huts and sounds more pathetic and weak than she has heard before. She runs into the dimly lit hut to see him leaning over a sick imp-child trying to get liquids in her mouth. "Jaken? I need Nintojo to light a fire."

He hands it to her without looking at her. "She won't drink?"

He shakes his head and wipes tears from his eyes. "If they don't drink they die faster."

"Okay…I'll make broths, will that help?"

"It might. Rin?" He turns around hugs her around the waist. "I'm sick!" The tears spill over the side of his pale green cheeks, down his face.

"I won't let you die Jaken." She kneels down to return his embrace. "Remember when the Saimyosho bit you? I went and climbed a cliff to save you? I'll climb over whatever mountain I have to, to save you."

He nods against her.

"I have to go, Sesshomaru is waiting for me."

"You better hurry then. His aura is foul right now. He needs you."

"You can feel it too, huh? It's like a dark cloud is resting on his shoulders." She takes Nintojo and jogs back to the hut where the smell of shochi is so strong, she wonders how it's not bothering the noses of the sentinels or the others with sensitive smell.

She finds him already naked when she enters, stripped down to just his fundoshi which leaves little to the imagination. He leans over his own armor with a white cloth, slushing water from a bucket over it until he is sure that every corner has been disinfected. "I am helping the ill," he says so plainly as his eyes gaze at the wall.

She nods. "Okay."

"You don't worry, I'll get sick?"

She shrugs her shoulders as she gathers another rag in her hand and dips it in the mixture. She starts on his back and shoulder, while he wipes down his katanas. "No," she answers quietly.

He stops turning on her. "Do you want me to die?"

"No," she says offended. "Kami, Sesshomaru. After all we've been through together, why would I want that?"

"She kissed me."

"I know that. She misses him."

He nods continuing his work on his katanas while she rubs the cloth over his lower back. She tugs on his fundoshi. "We should wash this just to be safe."

"Or because you wish to see me naked?" He smirks back at her.

She touches the corner of his mouth with her thumb. "There it is. I was wondering if your smile would be lost forever. I could make it more enticing to remove this." She bites the back of his ear, just at the tip and hears a menacing growl in return. "You liked that." She giggles against his shoulder while she reaches behind her back and unties her obi. She wears only one layer, when she works in the gardens, especially in the summer, which is why she is so cold. She lets it fall to her legs and leans around his heated back, kissing his shoulders. Her nipples pucker from the cold. "My love."

"My heart." He lifts one of her hands up to his lips, licking the shochi water off her fingertips. "You're cold."

She tugs on his fundoshi again, this time fully intent on loosening them to remove the cloth and wash them in one of the buckets. "Let me touch you," she seduces him. As soon as the garment is removed, she lowers her hands against his shaft and holds him as he grows in her palm. "Do you think they'll hear us."

"I am not the one that makes the majority of the noise."

"Mmh," she says with a snigger, "then I guess we'll see if I can make you howl."

He stands up turning around, completely bare to her. "Clean me first, then I you."

"Okay." She jumps up and pecks his lips, forcing back a wave of mourning.

"My heart, did the halberd disturb you?" He knows she loves it when he calls her that.

She pauses before pressing the cloth into his chest. "It's been years. Why did you chill the village?"

"Cold chills a fever. There are too many to line in the river. It must remain cold to break the fevers of those sick until we are able to find a cure."

She nods and begins to wipe his chest. Droplets of water drip down his chest muscles, down his abs and off his erection. She wipes his stomach and sides until she is satisfied they are completely soaked in the water and shochi mixture. She teases him down his stomach and stops at his pelvis when he leans himself into her touch. "I felt your fear." He rests his forehead against hers as his arms wrap around her shoulders. "My heart, did you have a flashback? Mmh," he groans as her hand dips down and she rubs the cloth against the sensitive skin around his shaft and then along it directly, soaking him.

"Flashback?" She grips his shoulders under his arms.

He pinches her chin to open her mouth as he leans into a kiss that nearly knocks her over. "Images of the past. It's a medical term."

"In one of your books?"

He nods pressing his mouth against hers. "You're safe my heart."

She trembles under his touch, as if it's the first time they have made love. "Sesshomaru." She hugs him tightly. For a moment, she wonders how everyone is fairing, waiting for them to finish.

"My legs," he tells her. She reaches down and wets the cloth again, this time wiping his legs and backside. He lifts one leg and then the other to ensure that even his feet are clean.

She glances up at him as he stares off in the distance somewhere and then pinches the skin in between his big toe and little toe, daring to see if he was ticklish there. He stumbles on the wooden boards of the hut and catches himself against a barrel glaring at her. She cackles before she is hefted up and she can stop him, the entire bucket of cleanser is dumped on her head. "Ahhh!" she protests jumping from the cold. "You!"

"You started it," he reminds her playfully as he rubs the mixture into her hair. "You will need to cut this to keep it clean." He balls her hair into a fist up to her shoulders. "Shall I cut it?"

"Not now." She pulls her hair back.

He takes a rag and starts on her front. He runs the cloth over her breasts, rubbing her nipples vigorously, then up her neck, around the tender skin behind her as she turns, he cleans her back. The cloth falls down her waist, around her navel, over her hips, her backside, and then he is on his knees with another smile on his face.

"This is too tender." He runs a clawed finger from the top of one lip to the back, then kisses her slit. "Give me your leg." He tugs on the back of one knee to get her to lift it.

She regrets the motion, the moment her heel rests on his knee, because a vice-grip holds her ankle in place while she giggles as he tickles the bottom of her foot. She loses her balance and flops against the wall of the hut in laughter. "I can't believe you."

"Again," he says huskily, "you started it."

"I guess I will have to finish it." She gives him her other leg long enough for him to clean it then launches herself into his chest and embraces his lips. "I love you."

"And I you." He pulls them both to standing.

She bites down hard on his collar bone where she knows he likes it, just near the joint and then licks her way across his chest until she hits his peck and swirls her tongue in a circle around it. He leans back against one of the barrels as she works her way down his body, nipping an ab muscle, his ribs, and then coming down to his shaft, she sucks on the tip, then takes him in until she feels it tickle the back of her throat. Her tongue slides underneath, flicking the sensitive piece of skin right near the tip of his erection.

Fingers feather into her hair and she feels him fighting his body to thrust into her mouth. She sucks harder until she can taste salt and he pulls her off. "Enough," he pushes her back against the wall of the hut. She knows it's her turn now and she can't stop herself from dancing. She is both cold on the outside and burning in her core. _He will find the cure…he just needs me to believe in him._ She doesn't want to think about how dark his personality has become since he lost his brother or how rarely they do what they are doing now.

"Rin-sama?" she hears Hisato call from outside the hut and suddenly she wonders where he has been lately.

She arches, nearly falling over as his lips cover her nipples. She bites her lower lip to keep from moaning in pleasure. His tongue darts and flicks until it's hard in his mouth and he switches to the other, massaging her. "We're nearly…finished…Hisato," she pants out of breath.

"Are we?" Sesshomaru asks darkly. "You didn't make me howl. Shall we turn this game on you? Can you keep from screaming?" His tongue darts out and slides from the middle of her breasts, along the muscles of her stomach, into her navel until he begins to lick a pattern on the skin of her abdomen, just above her curls.

She grips the sides of the walls with her nails, then his shoulders, because she needs something to hold onto as his fingers run lightly up and down her slit as he continues to lick lines on her stomach. "Do you know what I'm writing?"

She hadn't noticed before that the patterns were letters and as he starts again, she pays closer attention. "Red string?" she asks him and nearly sings when his tongue dips down, into her slit and wiggles against her clit.

"We are fated." He grabs her hips possessively and sucks, while dragging one hand down her buttocks, onto her knee, pulling it over his shoulder. "Whatever happens," he gazes back at her, more vulnerable than she has seen him in the past. "I will find you my heart." He sucks again, burning a hole through her middle. "My soul." Two fingers insert inside her and begin to pump against the tender flesh that engorges when she aroused. "Rin," he sings her name as he holds her and wraps his tongue around her clit. "Come for me," he mutters against her.

"You won't die my love," she pants out, rocking her hips into his fingers. He knows exactly where to touch her and which places has her biting her bottom lip to keep from screaming. He touches it over and over, pumping and pushing until she feels herself go so hot, she wants to escape, just before the pleasurable pulsing comes. He doesn't wait, continuing to hold her leg up, he lifts her up around her buttocks, pushing her back against the hut as he pushes his shaft into her wet folds. He slides in, as if he was made to fit her, she can feel herself gripping him. She grinds her hips into his making the feeling that much more intense as she comes close to orgasming against him again. She throws her head back while he kisses and bites down on her neck. She moans softly into his ears as he pumps into her open hips while he holds her. She knows he likes it when her legs are wide and she submits herself to him. There is something more, something possessive this time as he beats into her.

"I will find you again," he says. His tongue slides up her neck and they come together. His nose rubs into her skin, through her hair until their foreheads rest together. "I will find you."

"You will not die my love. You won't. You will find the cure. I have faith in you."

"Share my pain." He floods her with the pain buried deep in his heart and buries his eyes in her neck.

A stream of tears washes over her shoulders, down her back. He stays engaged while she pulses against him and she comforts his tears. "I love you."

He nods unable to speak. The pain is to great but not just that, an emotion she has never felt from him before. Fear.


	60. Kagome-Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kagome works with Sesshomaru and Rin to keep the villagers alive and finds relief in the most unlikely person.

**Kagome-past**

Jealousy is an unpleasant emotion. He should be here so those grunts and groans of pleasure aren't so painful to hear. It's obvious they are both trying to stifle them and the rough slight sway of the wooden walls of the hut. Each crash makes her miss the nights Inuyasha would hold her, the roughness of his fingers against her skin and how he had memorized her body and she his.

It's been three years. Here, she would be considered a harlot if she did more than take care of her needs in the middle of the night. She shrugs, glancing at the line of people she needs to instruct how to sterilize themselves. The noises grow louder and she knows it obvious what is going on in there. "Come on. Hurry up already."

Hisato chuckles next to her. "They sound very involved."

Kagome rolls her eyes and tries to laugh.

"Is that jealousy I smell?" Hisato places a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't you dare say anything." She leans against the wall of the hut, using her senses to locate where the yoki is the strongest and at least stop the roof from shaking. She feels herself burning again, with a need she can't satisfy herself.

"If you have an itch as Gobodo-sama calls it, why not scratch it?" he asks curiously.

Kagome winces, wondering it was that obvious. "Because it's not proper."

"Why?"

"Because it's not." She presses harder against the wall when her weight doesn't work. It rumbles and shakes, making hay fall from the roof. "You know what, can you lean right here?" She points to the spot next to her.

He comes over and leans his elbow against the wall, stabilizing the bouncing. "My brother would scratch your itch."

"Eww! No," but the idea is appetizing. She'd seen him before with his shirt off and the idea isn't immediately repulsive. "I hate you."

He laughs in return. "It's a natural need. Especially once it's already began."

"He better not get me pregnant."

"It would be too dangerous to do so." Hisato presses harder against the wall as one last harder thuds shakes some of the hay on top loose. "If he doesn't love you, he will kill you. We may not be pure-blooded but it's enough to lose control."

"Yeah but I could purify that. Just tell him not to."

"So I should send my brother to you tonight?"

She nods, guiltily but she is a woman and has needs and sometimes the burning is so strong it doesn't matter how she touches herself, the release isn't strong enough without a warm body there. But then she sees Taisho inside the hut with Sota. They burned Tatsuo's body earlier and she fears that she will lose her sons to this illness. "Taisho!" she calls stupidly, knowing it's already too late and he's been exposed. Never the less, she runs up to him and says, "you shouldn't be here."

Sayako is asleep on a tabi-mat, breathing easier now that the wind has chilled the village. She feels the cold but numbness makes anything difficult to penetrate the shield she has around herself.

"I'm already exposed Ka-san. I touched his body before it was burned. I helped Sota clean up and he isn't sick. He's been around everyone. If it was going to kill him, he would be dead already."

"Taisho!?"

"No!" he yells back at her. "Ka-san, I have been here for years without you. Years with Ojisama now. You can't come here and tell me how to live my life. It's mine, and if I want to risk it by helping the ones that are sick then I will!"

She screams frustrated as bright light exits the hut and then Hisato motions for her to come. "You're going to have to wash your whole body and clean your clothes."

"I will."

She exhales staring at Sota as he sits next to his sick lover. "Sota?"

"I'm okay Ka-san. You can go." He lays down and brings her to his chest. "Sayako."

It takes several hours for her to cleanse everyone and have clean clothes brought. On her way out she instructs the villagers to build two more huts with two exits instead of one. The first for when they go in and the second for when they leave. There is only so much to do with the medicine that is available. Now there are changes of clothing that have been as sanitized as they can manage and dried. Everyone will go in and change into the house clothes from the manor and leave them to be cleaned when they leave. But there is more, she needs to know how this disease works and is sadly all too familiar with it.

She watched it devour Inuyasha for two years. She starts her hike back to the manor, huddling in on herself, when she feels a semi-strong rush of yoki land next to her. An arm wraps around her waist and she is bundled in black fur that heats her skin. "Sato." The air moves more quickly as she is carried over the ground.

"I heard you have a problem," he purrs in her ear, licking the skin of her neck.

She shivers away from the contact when she feels lips chuckle against her ear.

"No need to be bashful Miko. I'll be gentle."

"Not now, I need to speak to Sesshomaru." And yet he is here and ready and it's already late.

Sato lands with her inside the public dining room, releasing her and trailing behind her as she walks to the right where a new corridor was built with rooms for her and Taisho and even a spare for Mayumi and Izayoi, should the well start working again. She enters as he keeps his distance ducking into her room when no one is looking. He immediately begins disrobing, "is there anything in particular you like?"

Kagome scoffs, turning around to find him naked from the waist up. "I…never really did this with anyone else besides him."

"I have not been with a Miko before if that helps." He approaches her making her breath hitch. "No need to be scared."

"It's not fear," she lies and somewhat tells the truth. It's guilt that she is using someone else to comfort the pain she feels.

"You aren't betraying him." He reaches behind her and tugs on her yellow obi. "Tell me what you like."

Her breath catches when her obi falls and her kimono spreads in front of him. It was hot out and underneath all she has left is a withered, black sports bra and panties.

He touches the top of her bra with his claw and curious gold eyes. "What is this?"

"A bra."

"Bra?" he tests the word on his lips. "It looks like it is squeezing you."

"It's meant to," her words catch in her throat, when he grazes the tops of her breasts with his teeth. He leaves marks on her skin with his fangs and sucks apologetically against the injuries he's caused.

The contact has Kagome hissing in pleasure and dancing on the balls of her feet. Timidly she lifts a hand and cups the top of his head. His hair is not like his brother's. Sato wears it short, spikey and somehow it makes the demon standing in front of her that much more attractive.

He leans one hand over her shoulder against the wall. "These other things Rin-sama wears." He tugs lightly on her underwear. "You're beautiful for a human that is nearly forty, may I kiss your mouth?"

"What?" She struggles to breathe. She can see his pants bulging around his legs, yearning for freedom. His eyes are different than Sesshomaru's. They are lined with black markings around the golden orbs and slashes of magenta.

He leans in closer, so his lips ghost over hers. "Amongst our kind, kisses on the mouth are reserved for lovers. Is it for love you want to lay with someone tonight, or is it simply the release?" Sato's lowers his triple striped hand into her underwear and presses against her slit with the back of his hand. "You are already wet. Is it that bad?"

She is wet and burning and has been since she kissed Sesshomaru not understanding what the hell she was thinking. She moves closer and embraces his lips in hers, cupping his masculine, squared chin. He returns the kiss, his tongue dancing against her own. He pulls back and asks again, "Is it love you want tonight?"

"You don't love me."

"No, but I have seen your tears, in the forest when you think no one is looking. In the village. The garden. You miss your dead lover."

"How do you know that?" she whispers. "Have you been watching me?"

"Watching is my job." He pushes his lips back into hers and pushes her sleeves off her shoulders. She wraps her arms around his neck. He lifts her up by the back of her legs, to wrap around his waist. His hands run up the back of her legs, under her underwear, massaging her bottom. His mouth comes down her neck, clamping down tenderly, while she surrenders to him. The heat is more than she can bear. He presses himself into her, feeling the moisture and heat through his grey hikama. She throws her head back as his mouth rests between her breasts. He delicately kisses the tops of her mounds. "Is there an easy way to remove this garment?"

Her legs come down and they part enough for Kagome to pull the black bra over her head and slide her underwear off her legs. "It's been three years." She watches hypnotized as Sato slips his hikama off. Three years with no intimate contact, three years of mourning and tears and she wants and can't stop herself. She doesn't want to stop herself, even as his muscular, robust body comes back to her. He also has stripes on his abs, instead of pointing down to his groin like his brother, they start at his hips and flare out up his sides. His shaft is heavy and she can't help but touch it, making him groan.

The tainted one is built, with bulbs down his stomach but he is not as lean as Sesshomaru or Inuyasha. He is thicker around the waist and even has a trail of hair that crosses his chest like a T and then traces a path down his stomach. He pulls her onto the futon, their feet stepping onto the soft sheets. "Shall I treat you like you are a virgin."

"How many of those have you been with?"

"At least three." He holds her hand out so he can look at her and twirls her around, licking his lips.

A wave of morning washes over her as she is spun, but it hurts and she wants to bury the pain.

He pulls her to him and says tenderly, "if you don't want this we can stop. There are other women I could bed tonight."

"That makes me feel great Sato, thank you." She exhales. "It's just different."

"It's just release. Go on all fours."

"Why?"

"You didn't do it this way?"

"We did, but normally after I climaxed."

"I have every intention of making you feel good. If you won't tell me what you like, then I will experiment until your need is satisfied."

Her cheeks burn so red the blush spreads to her arms. She wraps her arms around his neck again. "I liked…it feels so strange talking about this with you."

"Do you like this?" He lifts a leg over his hip as he stands and presses his fingers inside her.

She feels the heat of his fingers combine with her own and how easily they slip in. She moans into his neck. They feel foreign and new. "Yes." She humps his hand.

"And if I do this?" He adds a thumb, circling her clit.

"Yes," she purrs into his neck. "Sato?"

"Tell me Miko. Tell me how to make you feel good," he embraces her lips again with his own.

She falls backwards on the bed pulling him down on top of her with his fingers still engaged in her weeping core. Her hips follow the movement of his hands. "Do you like to be licked?"

He keeps up his ministrations with his fingers while rocking his hips into hers. Her eyes dilate as she stares up at him, a practical stranger that she has only spoken to in passing. "Yes," she begs him. This is what she wanted and it feels so good it has to be wrong. He bites down on her nipple, making her squirm, then swirls his tongue around the brown tip. He sucks and licks as she arches into his mouth, gripping his thick sides.

He traces circles down her stomach, nipping here, kissing her hip bones until he comes down to her curls. Her body is on fire, the trail of his tongue is like a torch against her skin. His fingers make her clench and tighten. She spreads for him, flowering, sucking his fingers back in. "Do you like it here?"

"Yes." She grips his shoulders until her knuckles turn white. Her walls are already tense from what he has done to her.

"Go on all fours," he says with a smirk.

"Sato please?"

"Do it." He sits up, erection very apparent between his legs. "Put your hips over my face."

"You are entirely too comfortable with this," she tells him as she straddles his face.

"Just enjoy what I do to you." He reaches one hand out and pinches her nipple. She groans leaning forward only to feel a warm hand catch the small of her back and fingers to enter again. He tugs her hips down over his mouth and then she can feel the wet tongue on her clit. He is more aggressive than Inuyasha was and she can't help but rock her hips harder into his mouth as he creates the suction she so desperately wants from him.

She moans as the heat intensifies and her walls become like rocks. "Sato," she squeezes the sheets. "Please!"

He finds what she needs and presses his fingers against her swelling core, making her convulse against him.

"Oh! Oh!" she cries out, not caring if someone hears her. Her muscles tighten around his fingers as he lets her ride out her orgasm. She feels him tugging her hips down until she is near his erection. It doesn't take convincing for her to sit down on top of him. He stretches walls that have not been used in three years. "Oh," she grasps his shoulders and begins rocking her hips into his. For a moment there is a sting and she gasps.

"Miko," he growls holding her butt in his hands. "So wet," he pushes into her. "Lean over." He pulls her down over him and sucks her nipples. "Do you want to climax again?"

"Yes." Against her will a tear falls from her eyes.

Sato flicks it from her cheek and shoves himself inside of her again. "You are not betraying him."

He brings her hand down to her clit. He helps her find a rhythm as he keeps the pressure of his shaft inside of her.

Her body is on fire, she rubs herself roughly, in rapid motions until she is clenching on his lap. This time she howls, from the fire and from the release, collapsing on his chest, she finds warmth against his skin. She wipes her eyes, "Sato?"

"What?" He strokes her back, still engaged and sniffs her hair.

"Can you stay for a bit?"

"So it was love you were looking for." He presses his lips against her forehead as she slides off him, dripping down his stomach. "Get me a cloth to clean myself then yes. I can stay for a short time."

"This isn't love Sato." She rises and gets a bundle of cloths and dips them into a bucket of water cleaning herself and tossing one on his stomach.

"No it isn't. But your welcome to find comfort in my arms."

She crawls back up the bed to him and lays down against his chest. "My grandson died."

"I know."

"My daughter in-law is sick." The tears come again. "I'm so scared."

"So am I," he says soberly, tightening his grip on her shoulders. "The end has come for my kind."

She sleeps for several hours against his chest, pretending that he is Inuyasha and that it's all been one bad dream after another. The banging wakes her up and so does being dropped on the bed. "Hisato," Sato cracks the door completely naked.

"Sato!" Kagome shrieks diving for her underlayer and swirling into it not so gracefully, hoping that Hisato doesn't get a view of her while she dresses.

"Sesshomaru-sama and Rin-sama need the Miko. I held them off for a bit. They expect her now and he will come looking if I return empty handed again."

Sato shuts the door and turns to his pile of clothing, dressing in silence.

She watches him oddly entranced by his actions. He touches her chin and kisses his fingers on the way out. She leaves moments after him in a vain attempt to make it look like she wasn't with him. But it's in vain because Taisho is standing outside the door. "Him?"

"It didn't mean anything," she says quickly.

"First, you tell me not to expose myself. Now you have sex with Sato?"

Kagome takes a very deep breath and says firmly, "Taisho. If I don't get an opinion in your life, you don't get one in mine."

She can readily see the anger wafting off the boy. Although at twenty three he can barely be called a boy anymore and she wonders what female will steal his heart. "You think this is what he would have wanted?"

"It's what I wanted." Kagome pushes past him, aggravated and more than annoyed.

"Slut."

She almost thinks she misses it but turns around and slaps her son her across the face as hard as she can. "Don't you dare! You…you have no idea what it's been like for me the last three years without your father! None! It hurts and I'm tired of sleeping in an empty bed! Dammit Taisho!"

He holds is face that burns with the red mark his mother left him. He stalks away.

She cups her hand to her chest as she goes down the family corridor in the center of the public dining hall and follows the ferocious yoki emanating from Sesshomaru's study. He sits with Rin close to his side and Harutoga in his lap. If he only knew that he was going to become a doctor and heal the sick. She wishes she had a camera to catch the tender moment. "It's late, Harutoga what are you doing up?" she asks as she walks in.

"I can't sleep. My stomach hurts. Are we going to die?" The little one says while curling into the safety of his father's chest.

"Not if we can help it." Kagome enters, ignoring the lack of decorum and sits down at the table on the other end of Sesshomaru. Her cheeks flush again when she sees him eyeing her curiously. She hates their noses, how she hates the nose of a dog-demon that reveals all your secrets. "Um…I was asleep. Why do you need me?"

"Sleep," Sesshomaru scoffs, a sheen of red crossing over his eyes. "Is that what you call it?"

"For god's sake Sesshomaru!" Kagome slams her fist down on the table. "Not like the entire village didn't hear you making the hut shake while you banged Rin!"

"Kagome-sama!" Rin screams with her hands on her hips.

"Banged?" Sesshomaru asks.

"Banged, fucked…why can't you learn a few new words. Why do I have to be stuck here! I don't know why I even bother with you, if all you're going to do is make judgements about what I choose to do with my life!"

"What's going on?" Rin asks Sesshomaru.

"She and Sato have been intimate."

"What?" Rin's voice peaks matching Kagome's. "Did you enjoy it?"

"You're encouraging her?" Sesshomaru questions.

"Why not? It's been years."

"She should forget my brother?"

"This from the guy who spent a decent amount of time trying to kill him!" Kagome flares at Sesshomaru, wanting to grab her spiritual power and see how much pain she can cause him. "You bastard, you knew!"

"Knew what?" He stands, his yoki rises to match her.

She knows he can feel the threat of her power coming over him. "You knew he would die and you didn't tell me!"

"Impossible!"

But it's Rin who breaks it by slapping Kagome across the face and shaking her head so vehemently that she snaps back to herself. "He would want you to move on," Rin encourages her.

"This wasn't moving on. This was relief," Kagome spits it sourly. "That's all it was. Sesshomaru, how can you be hurt on his behalf? It was just relief. Tatsuo died and you weren't even here!"

"Stop it!" Rin stands up. "All of you. This isn't helping. We can't fight amongst ourselves right now. That isn't going to save lives. We need to sit down and figure out how to stop this before it gets worse."

"It's going to get worse," Kagome says heartlessly.

Rin glares at Kagome.

Sesshomaru seats himself again.

"You are such a judgmental ass," Kagome fumes as she sits. "We both know after she dies where you will be going and you'll sit and act like you're the king of being right! How long will you wait? A day? Three days? A month? Will you even mourn her death?"

He snarls, baring his teeth.

She isn't afraid. She could take him down and she knows it. "Miko I would choose your words wisely."

"Stop!" Rin finally breaks down. "Can't you see this isn't helping?" She picks up the book from the future with the notes on epidemiology and sets it in the middle of the table and all the other books and notes that he has written over the years. "Now that books says we need to find out who patient one was."

"We know who it was, don't we Sesshomaru?" Kagome wipes her eyes.

"Inuyasha," Sesshomaru speaks blandly as he takes out a quill and ink, writing it on a large piece of parchment. "After that it travelled to the imps, the ogres in the south and the West to my kind."

"But it wasn't contagious when Inuyasha had it," Rin adds. "Everyone was around him."

"So then the peddler hadn't perfected the toxin or whatever it was by then," Kagome says.

The quill paints the paper with their notes.

"The symptoms begin with a fever and malaise," Sesshomaru intones quietly. "Blisters at the bottom of the feet and a rash that spreads. I have not seen the end Miko."

"It spreads to the hands, face and legs, when it reaches the heart," she covers her eyes. "I'm sorry…when…I can't."

"Tatsuo died from vomiting up blood," Rin supplies quietly. "This hurts."

"Chichiue?" Harutoga says from next to his father and everyone turns to him. "Will I die?"

"I will not allow it."

Kagome snorts, knowing that no matter what, the child in front of her will survive but the question is, when he will become sick and when will Sesshomaru. "So we know the symptoms. Diarrhea is also a symptom. So we need to feed the ones that are sick foods that keep the stomach calm and keep them hydrated."

"Jaken couldn't get a child to drink," Rin said.

"Electrolytes, the balance of sodium, chloride, potassium, calcium. Meat broths will supply the sodium and the taste for those with a pallet more suited to meat. For children something sweet," Sesshomaru answers easily.

"Orange juice?" Harutoga supplies.

"Too acidic," Kagome answers.

"Grape or Mango. Apples?" Harutoga wonders.

"I'll set to work having the staff who are not infected make those and supply them to the ill. The cold is going to make the humans sick Sesshomaru." Rin touches his wrist.

"Then they will be sick. Their illnesses mean nothing right now."

Kagome flinches at how callous he sounds. _It's only his kind he cares about, how does he go from this to caring about humans?_ "Well, what if we hand out warmer clothes to everyone? Rin you have enough wool kimono's to clothe quite a few women."

"I'll make sure the humans in the village have the clothes they need to survive. The ones that aren't sick will come to the public dining hall at night to stay warm. The ones that are will be all demon and need the cold anyway," she says, her voice shaking. "We can do this. Harutoga you cannot go to the village, even when Yuki disobeys. Okay?"

He nods his little head firmly.

"What is that?" Sesshomaru rises from the floor.

"Oh no," Kagome can feel the rise of reiki beating at something and a ferocious amount of yoki following that. "Dammit Taisho!"

"This is because you bedded that tainted bastard!" Sesshomaru yells as he flashes out of the house.

Kagome runs. She can feel the yoki fighting her son's holy powers and she's scared. Taisho is attacking Sato. Did she make a mistake?

**Author's Note:**

> Comment and Kudo as always!!


End file.
